American Home Shield Launches New Real Estate Home Warranty Plans

MEMPHIS, TN--(Marketwired - October 15, 2014) - American Home Shield, the leader in the home warranty industry, today announced its launch of three new, easy-to-understand real estate plans geared exclusively toward protecting major home appliances and system components during and after real estate transactions. With high across-the-board coverage levels, attractive pricing and items logically grouped based on what is most popular among homeowners, company officials characterize the redesigned product line as a "game changer" in the real estate community.

"Our research already shows that homes with an American Home Shield home warranty sell faster and at a higher price point than those without a home warranty," said Laird Hamberlin, vice president of sales for American Home Shield, a business unit of ServiceMaster Global Holdings, Inc., (SERV), a leading provider of essential residential and commercial services. "We believe our new real estate plans will be even more attractive to home buyers, sellers and real estate professionals, and help us support responsible home ownership by delivering even greater value to our customers and the market as a whole."

The three new American Home Shield real estate plans include:

• ShieldEssential -- coverage for the most critical home systems that are the most expensive to repair and replace.

• ShieldPlus -- includes coverage for all ShieldEssential items, plus coverage for some common, major household appliances.

• ShieldComplete -- includes coverage all ShieldEssential and ShieldPlus items, as well as coverage for additional, ancillary home items.

In addition, qualified home sellers can add the redesigned seller coverage package for up to six months while their home is on the market, protecting the major home system components that are the most expensive to repair and replace. Along with helping to protect their budget during the listing period, the coverage can help distinguish the property from other listings, and help reduce any pre-close issues related to the home inspection.

Hamberlin said initial in-market feedback to the new real estate product line has been overwhelmingly positive, which he contributes in large part to the extensive research the team conducted with homeowners, service contractors and real estate professionals in the development process. A redesigned online experience for real estate professionals is also proving to be very popular, he said.

"Brokers and agents are telling us that they're very pleased by how simple and well-designed these new products are -- and they love the new online platform," he said. "The products are easy to understand, which makes it very easy for them to explain during the sales process. Plus, the plans have a depth and breadth of coverage that allows their clients to easily customize their plan based on their unique needs."

Base coverage is consistent across all real estate packages, including repairs and replacements for mismatched systems, coverage for undetectable pre-existing conditions, improper installations, lack of maintenance, rust and corrosion, and more.

To learn more about the American Home Shield Real Estate Home Warranty, visit www.AHSRealEstateEdition.com.

About the research study methodology:
The research is based on data collected by American Home Shield and a large national real estate firm of the firm's listings that closed between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012. American Home Shield studied 24,230 listings from across the country ranging in price from $100,000 to $500,000. The results were verified by Cannon & Company, a third-party accounting firm. For more information, contact American Home Shield.

About American Home Shield
American Home Shield founded the home warranty industry in 1971 and remains the industry leader. Together with all of its wholly-owned subsidiaries, AHS services over 1.5 million customers in all 50 states. The companies operate four customer service centers, employ approximately 1,800 employees and have a national contractor network made up of over 10,000 independent home service contractors and more than 45,000 service technicians. American Home Shield is a business unit of ServiceMaster Global Holdings, Inc. (SERV), one of the world's largest residential and commercial service networks. The company's brands include Terminix, American Home Shield, ServiceMaster Restore, ServiceMaster Clean, Merry Maids, Furniture Medic and AmeriSpec.

About ServiceMaster
ServiceMaster Global Holdings, Inc. (SERV) is a leading provider of essential residential and commercial services, operating through an extensive service network of more than 7,000 company-owned, franchised and licensed locations. The company's portfolio of well-recognized brands includes Terminix (termite and pest control), American Home Shield (home warranties), ServiceMaster Restore (disaster restoration), ServiceMaster Clean (janitorial), Merry Maids (residential cleaning), Furniture Medic (furniture repair) and AmeriSpec (home inspections). The company serves approximately 5 million residential and commercial customers through an employee base of approximately 13,000 company associates and a franchise network that independently employs an estimated 33,000 additional people. The company is headquartered in Memphis, Tenn. Go to www.servicemaster.com for more information about ServiceMaster or follow the company at twitter.com/ServiceMaster or facebook.com/TheServiceMasterCo.

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