Prorated Versus Non-provided Mattress Warranty

Discovering The Difference in Guarantees

Mattress warranties at first glance appear to be some of the most impressive guarantees in retail. These guarantees are an assurance or promise that if something goes wrong with your mattress that the issue will be taken care of by the builder of the product. Warning: these repair or replacement contracts may not be all they’re cracked up to be. Reviews, mattress forums, and other discussions online can be an eye-opener that they may not be worth the paper they are written on. One of the most important things shoppers can do says Consumer Reports, Sleep Like The Dead and The Mattress Underground has educated themselves about the industry and about warranties especially concerning what they do and don’t cover. Next up learning the difference between prorated and non-prorated warranty.

Non-prorated mattress warranty

Customers often assume that a 10 – 20-year warranty means that there is no cost to them during the stated time period and the problem will be taken care of, guess again.
In the case of a non-prorated portion of a warranty, this is partially true. This assurance spells out the specific number of days, months, or years that your mattress and or box spring are fully covered under warranty. Look at it as written promise put together by the bed’s producer detailing the exact specific potential problems that you might encounter. Within this spelled out time period your defective mattress is 100% guaranteed to be repaired or replaced at no charge to you provided you meet all of their specific guidelines. The guidelines spell out all of all the things they will be responsible for should something go wrong with your mattress that is defective or due to faulty workmanship.

Pro-rated mattress warranty

This is often the part of the warranty that is oversold by mattress salespeople and overvalued by customers. Prorated warranty does back up the product but does it at graduation expense overtime being charged to you the buyer to replace the mattress and/or box spring with a new one. While pro-rating discounts can be valuable before you get too excited to be sure to know what portion of the prorated warranty you fall within.

This is the portion of the guarantee that follows the non-rating explained above. For example, 20 years limited warranty. 1-5 could be non-prorated or virtually 0 cost to the owner.
The prorated portion of your warranty may run years 6-10 costing you 50% off the suggested retail price of a new one.
Years 11-15 maybe at 65%
Years 16-20 at 80%
These percentages are taken off the suggested retail price and are not discounts off of a sale price. Replacement cost usually does not include delivery or return shipping charges and numerous other expenses incurred replacing your defective mattress.

Warranty will they repair or replace my new mattress?

This is where the details become important. At their (the manufacturer’s) option they can choose to either replace the mattress or repair the mattress provided the defect is repairable. You then must show proof that you are the original purchaser and this is easily done by presenting your sales receipt. The mattress cannot be abused and stains or marks of “any kind” usually invalidate the warranty.

Our next blog will cover the specifics the manufacturer will cover under the 2 aforementioned warranty provisions.