First off: I service several hundred Guardsman claims a year. My success rate is above 98% in all disciplines. But I am simply a local technician that they hire to do the work. I cannot speak for them.

For those that I service, they generally are glad they got the coverage and are ahead. Just last week, I successfully removed a stain on a sectional that the consumer had hired a large company to come in and remove (before they realized they had a plan that covered it). The other company succeeded in just making the stain worse.

But it works like insurance - shared risk of sudden, accidental, and unexpected damage. Consumers often have an understanding that it "covers everything." They get caught up in the exclusions and believe they are cheated that they don't get a five year cleaning plan, they won't clean BBQ sauce from the 4th of July picnic for Thanksgiving, or cover simple wear and tear or intentional damage. If that was the case, it would have to be priced so that you couldn't afford it.

The other thing to remember is a guarantee is only as good as the people standing behind it. One of the other major players got in financial trouble a few years ago, quit paying their technicians (who eventually quit accepting new work) and reorganized their way, limping back into business. The same would be true of an in-house plan by a local furniture company -- how many of them have gone out of business in the last 5 years, and how many will in the next two? Guardsman has a large corporation, Valspar, behind them.

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Gaurdsman Prtection plan is a HUGE SCAM. NEVER BUY THIS PLAN. TELL EVERY ONE WHO ARE GOING TO BUY THIS PLAN.
All the shops who sell this plan must be part of the SCAM. I think BOB FURNITURE IS ALSO PART OF THIS SCAM.
They took 10 days after I sent photos showing damage on sofa and finally told that it got damaged due to poor quality of leather and hence they wouldn't cover. What a cheating BOBS and Guardsman together doing. BOBS told that they would cover any kind of damage. Another reason they told is I should inform with in a week of damage happened but I informed after few weeks. What a silly reason.

I purchased the Guardsman Plan thru Haverty's two years ago and had a damaged spring on my sofa. I researched the complaints and reviews regarding the plan before contacting Guardman from various websites and found a variety of opinions regarding them. Needless to say I was not expecting much from them when I went to their website. I downloaded the Request for Service document and filled it out the day the damage occurred and I mailed it in. After about ten days I called the 1-800 number and was told they had to log it in before they could send out a service technician. I was told to call back in a few days and I did. They advised me that a technician would be calling me in a few days to fix the spring. The technician called a few minutes later the same day and set up an appointment during my lunch hour to fix the couch. He met him at my home and was prompt and professional. He repaired the broken piece of wood framing that held the spring to the cross member of the couch in minutes. I could not be happier. I found that if you just have a little patience, fill out the forms in a timely manner and along with a little follow up you can have a pleasant experience to get the results you paid for.

I recently put in a claim to Guardsman for the recliner being difficult to open and close. On their claim form it asks you for the date of the damage. BEWARE! The policy states that the damage must be reported within 5 days of the damage or it will be denied. I put in a estimated date that was more than 5 days before I put in the claim and therefore was denied. They may have excellent service if you can avoid this obvious loop hole they set up to deny claims. But I will never know, and I will never purchase anything Guardsman again!

This is common provision for most of the warranty companies, including, Guardian, Ultra Shield and I think Uniters who offer similar plans. There are a few companies with a 30 day reporting period but these are usually more costly. It was the fault of your salesman for not telling you this in advance and I would have to say that the consumer should take the time to review their contract in which this is stated. it really isn't a loophole. This is essentially an insurance policy and it is one of the provisions of the policy. You might call the store and ask them why they didn't inform you of this and ask them to contact Guardsman, ask them to make an exception and ask them to approve the claim. It the claim isn't large I would suspect they might approve it. These companies will make exceptions if pressed.

Most of these "insurance" plans don't cover anything that is related to how something is built or quality of materials used to built it. They cover you if you did the damage yourself by accident or by someone else. So their needs to be a specific event that caused the recliner to malfunction.

That's true but it is also determined by how you phrase your claim to the company and to some extent they base the claim on what you say so be careful what you say and say as little as possible. For example some plans have coverage for mechanisms such as sleeper and recliners as rmanbike suggested. If you were to call and say my recliner mechanism is broken and it has been getting worse over the past 6 months they would deny the claim as this was not from a specific event. If on the other hand you were to say. My husband sat on the recliner yesterday and as he was sitting down the mechanism broke they would cover this claim.

Keep in mind the reporting period of the coverage is very important. Most of the plans have a five day reporting period. The event has to have happened within the last five days. If you say it happened six days ago the claim would be denied.

One issue is the average salesperson in the typical furniture store does not really understand how the plans work and for the most part neither do the store owners and or their managers and as a result the plan is not properly explained to the consumer. Claims then get denied such as in the case with klbmail77 and you now have an unhappy customer who thinks the plan was a waste of money and they think the plan is a scam which it isn't. The customer was not properly educated and in this case the customers beef should be with the retailer not Guardsman. In my opinion these plans are very worthwhile but only to an educated consumer.

Guardsman may also have been remiss in not properly training the retailer.

Another issue with large retailers such as Bobs and Ashley stores: Overselling by the sales staff. For example the old comment from Patlollapraveen: "BOBS told that they would cover any kind of damage. " These plans have specific coverage. They do not cover any kind of damage. In this case either the salesperson told this to the customer, glossed over the coverage to make the sale or the customer heard what they wanted to hear.

I have just finished with a long, but successful experience with Guardian. I purchased a sectional couch from Haverty's and within a few weeks of the year's warranty ending, the mechanism that raises the footrest stopped working. Since we had purchased the Guardian coverage we contacted them and jumped through all the hoops necessary to place the claim. Then we waited. The original report was made July 26. The couch was repaired Nov. 1. After we took pictures, copied all the documentation requested and submitted it we waited; a technician called and arranged to come to the house. He knew what was wrong without looking..."it's the piece that always breaks", but didn't have the part. He took pictures (how do you show something not working?) and submitted it. We waited. A part came in the mail. I called Guardian to tell them. We waited. The technician called and came to repair it. We waited. When he arrived, they had shipped the wrong part. He took more pictures and we waited. The new part arrived. I called Guardian who said a technician would contact me. We waited. No call, I called again. We waited. Finally a date was set, the technician didn't arrive. I called and waited. Finally the tech came and repaired the couch in about 15 minutes. However he was careful to tell me that Guardian wouldn't be replacing this part that always breaks, again, because the policy was only good for one time. I won't be purchasing another protection agreement from Guardian.