Hunter Extended Warranty !?!?!?

[Cpt Cook]

Hello All,
We are the proud owners of h41DS 390, S/V Escapade. In reading a post on the Big Boats section, a poster mentioned that their extended warranty couldn't be honored as the company had gone out of business. Got me thinking..... Hey, as part of our purchase package, Hunter gave (sold, not really gave, but buried the price inside a package) us an extended warranty. A fact that gave the Hunter a few more points over the also considered Catalina. So, a little more searching, digging through files, calling now out of service phone numbers, and lo and behold, our extended warranty through First Warranty Group was now worthless as it was indeed them that went bankrupt, then disappeared :cussing:. This was quite discouraging. Among other reason being that I had not heard this from Hunter or my dealer. I do not have my ship's papers here, and expect the Hunter and the dealer's lawyers made sure that they have no liability for the warranty, but it would have been nice to hear from them. I have had this false sense of security for the last year and a half. I am not sure I would have done anything differently, but it would have been nice to know.
So fellow Hunter owners out there, did you hear about this from Hunter or your dealer? Have you had extended warranty work you needed to have sorted out? Did Hunter or your dealer offer any help at all? Inquiring minds want to know........:neutral:
Regards,
Bill and Wendy
S/V Escapade
h41DS 390

 

[Beechjetdriver]

We also got the five year extended warranty with our Hunter 38. Neither our broker, Massey Yachts, nor Hunter, has contacted us to tell us the warranty was no longer valid.

The security blanket we felt we had in with that extended warranty no longer exists.

Kudos to Massey Yachts and their service manager, Jim Beck, though. Recently Jim had our malfunctioning mag flux compass repaired at no cost to us, months after the expiration of our original warranty. I assumed he was doing this under the extended warranty coverage. In hindsight, this must have been a goodwill gesture.

 

[Steve W]

I don't have a dog in this particular hunt but Cpt Cook's post begs the question of who exactly went out of business. Is the warranty issued by someone other than Hunter (who is certainly in business!) or is the warranty "supplied" by a contractor/company other than Hunter? And if the warranty was 'brokered' through Hunter wouldn't they be legally required to honor it?

 

[nightowle]

possibly you could work with your broker to find another company that will offer an extended warranty, but it would, of course cost you another premium. It seems a lot of these extended warranty programs turned out to be scams or just were structured with bad business sense (unbeknown to Hunter or your broker) -- this goes for the 3rd party extended warranties on cars and houses, too. the warranty companies will do almost anything to invoke a clause that disavows their need to cover the item. They usually hide behind "user error" in denying claims. That's just my 2 cents from some experience with this.

 

[Cpt Cook]

So, there is the issue. We bought our boat from Massey Yacht Sales, not Hunter. As part of the package, Hunter bundled an extended warranty into the price of the boat, but Massey actually sold us the boat. The extended warranty was with a third party insurer that has gone bankrupt and disappeared. So I am not sure if either Hunter or Massey has any obligation to us. Massey is a reputable organization, and has gone above and beyond on a number of occasions for us (+1 on the Jim Beck kudos!), as well as Hunter often being VERY helpful. But, that extended warranty, bundled by Hunter, but sold to us by Massey, was there to protect us when the radar / chartplotter packs it in after 4 years of service (hypothetical example). I am very curious if anyone living my hypothetical has had any luck with Hunter or their dealer doing the right and customer oriented thing and helped them out. I mean if other parts of the boat "disappeared" after 6 months, I would expect Hunter to make it right. The extended warranty was not a contract between me and the warranty company, it was something I paid Massey to pay hunter to provide. Just venting, I guess........
And if anyone from Hunter and / or Massey is reading this, well it would have been a nice touch to let us know when you found out our purchased through you warranties became worthless.