Archived Copies of Warranty Week

January 1, 2021 to today

Warranty Expenses vs. Product Sales & Net Income: We're adding a new metric into the mix: net income. When manufacturers boost warranty accruals, net income suffers. And when warranty expenses drop, net income rises. But is there really a correlation between net income and warranty accruals? Or perhaps warranty reserves and net income?
April 8, 2021
Medical & Scientific Equipment Warranty Report: In the year of the pandemic, nothing seemed to happen as expected. Sales were up but warranty expenses were down, especially during the tumultuous second quarter. And some warranty expenses seem to have been shifted from early to late in the year, by both manufacturers and their customers.
April 1, 2021
Eighteenth Annual Product Warranty Report: When the pandemic began a year ago, shopping and work patterns changed radically, as many people found it hard to leave their homes or get to work. One would have expected a deep dive in warranty claims early on, but there was an even deeper drop in warranty accruals in the middle of the year, and a much higher makeup effort towards the end of the year.
March 25, 2021
Top 100 Warranty Providers of 2020: As we've done for the past 18 years, it's time to compare the most recent warranty metrics of the largest warranty providers in the U.S. to their year-ago warranty metrics, to see which of them have most successfully reduced their warranty costs.
March 18, 2021
New Home Warranty Report: Because new home builders were so thoroughly mauled by the effects of the Great Recession, one would think they would also have suffered greatly during the pandemic. But one would be wrong, because sales are up, and warranty expenses have more or less kept pace.
March 11, 2021
RV Warranty Update: Severely damaged during the Great Recession, the RV industry actually grew last year, and the survivors of that downturn a decade ago have also learned how to keep their warranty expenses under control, despite the health emergency. Winnebago, in fact, raised its warranty accruals in 2020 by exactly the same proportion as sales.
March 4, 2021
Truck & Heavy Equipment Warranties: As the lockdowns grew, some manufacturers reduced their warranty accruals drastically in the spring of 2020, but claims remained about the same anyhow. Some got it right, but most reduced their accruals by too much, while a few cut accruals even though sales rose.
February 25, 2021
Detroit Auto Warranty Update: It was supposed to be a down year, with car sales down and warranty expenses down also. The first part came true, and warranty work was way down last spring, but the latest financial data from the top U.S.-based automakers has warranty costs soaring late last year.
February 18, 2021
Extend Partners with PCMI: The way they've implemented their administration system allows online merchants to add protection plan programs to their websites in a matter of days. Hundreds of retailers have already done so, including Peloton, Advance Auto Parts, Logitech, and iRobot, plus some that are no bigger than a mom-and-pop storefront on the Shopify platform.
February 11, 2021
Warranty Early Reporters: Because some companies end their fiscal years months before December 31, they also report their warranty expenses a bit sooner than most. So we've collected warranty expense data from 18 early reporters in 10 industries, representing about a third of the U.S. total.
February 4, 2021
Warranty in the Biden Administration: A new president from a different party brings with him not only a radically new set of policies, but also a completely new batch of policymakers. Though barely a week old, the new administration has already filled many of those job openings, and has already signaled some of its top priorities.
January 28, 2021