Ron,

I think their purchase of the extended warranty was a one time cost up front of $1700, based on their last statement.  Thus, probably no "premiums" at all.

Terry

Well, first of all, yes Extended Warranties have almost been beaten to death as they are in almost every RV forum.  :)

Of course, we are representatives of Wholesale Warranties from the standpoint of suggesting them over any other extended service contract companies IF folks determine an extended warranty is for them. With that said, I agree with much of what has been written in this thread about self-insuring against major mechanical issues IF you can. I'm not a fan of extended warranties in general. However, if a major mechanical breakdown would devastate your funds, then they should be considered as long as you completely understand what they do and don't cover (most people don't take the time to ask the questions you are asking).

It's certainly an analysis of "what are the odds" of a breakdown, how much risk you are willing to take, the limit in dollars you can comfortably self-insure, whether you feel there is "value" in the cost considering the likelihood of filing claims, and other factors including what is and is not covered, and the financial status of the company paying the claims. 

On the value side, there is a lot of profit built into the extended warranties sold by dealers. That's why folks should at least get quotes from other sources. Once the quotes are in, then my suggestion is to just evaluate the likelihood of claims against the annual cost of the contract. For example, on our fifth wheel, the annual cost was about $400/yr and we could pretty easily justify that - we saved money over the years by having the warranties. But now, with our Class C motorhome, the annual cost is more like $1,300/yr and I'm struggling to determine if I see enough value in it. We can self-insure against the smaller repair items, but do we want to take the risk of having to cover the cost of a major engine repair? Been there, done that. In 2012, we lost our truck engine - that cost $18,000 since we didn't have an extended warranty. The odds of the loss of that engine were quite low, but it happened.   

Addressing some of the other comments in this thread, I agree with this statement "You insure for the losses you can't afford to cover yourself", and these statements "Many people fail to set aside sufficient money for such things and find themselves in a jam when they pop up. Some people also mistakenly believe that an EW covers everything". Certainly, in the overall scheme of things, the warranty companies are trying to pay out less than they take in, BUT they make their "real" money by investing all the premiums they take in and hold in the interim period between the receipt of the premiums and the payout of claims. Good companies are not looking for every excuse to deny claims.

As for your reference to "horror stories" about claims being denied because folks don't have evidence of manufacturer-suggested maintenance, every extended warranty contract I've seen has the requirement of doing regular maintenance per the manufacturers' guidelines and documenting such. So, the "horror stories" often come from those that didn't read or understand the contract or assumed "the contract didn't really mean it". Certainly, the intent is to have RV owners do their maintenance which, in turn, should reduce the necessity of repairs in general and claims on the warranty.

From what I've seen, claims are more readily covered when there is visible evidence of a clean, well-maintained rig and claims are questioned and more likely to be denied where it appears the RV has been neglected AND there is no evidence of routine maintenance.

For what it's worth, in our several extended warranty claims (mostly relatively small), no one ever asked for our documentation of routine maintenance so our answer to your question "Has anyone had a claim denied or had issues with a claim due to not having the paperwork they required?" is "No".