Every waiter learns this lesson in their first job - the chef can burn the steak, but it’s the waiter who has to compensate with his tips. If you’re a dealer selling wheelchairs, I am sure you are no stranger to that feeling.  

The manufacturer builds the power chair and writes the warranty. The warranty covers the part, excludes labor, service calls and shipping, accidental damage, and tells the customer to raise any problem back to whoever sold it, i.e., you, the dealer.  

Let’s put what that means into perspective.  

Early this year, a customer filed a BBB complaint about a power chair she bought for her mother:  

“It took me 10 days to get through to Customer Service, at which time I spoke with a rather combative gentlemen who seemed more interested in infomring me of the limits of my extended service than setting up a service call. He instructed me to send an email to him, with pics, which I did and one month later, I have heard nothing.”

After weeks of chasing support, the dealer publicly apologized to the customer and kept pushing for a resolution, only to be left waiting on the manufacturer.  

And that's a customer whose claim was at least arguable. Plenty aren’t- given the limits of manufacturer warranties.

Wheelchairs live outdoors and any broken pavement, poor curb cut, soft terrain, or steep incline pretty much guarantees a breakdown. Very few of those are manufacturing defects, and every one of them generates an anxious or angry phone call to you.

As the equipment dealer, you are the one who has to assuage their fears, track down the locate a technician, explain the delay, and take the heat when the repair takes longer than expected because- hey, it’s your reputation on the line.  

So, when the manufacturer goes silent and you know the furious customer isn’t entirely at fault- what are your options? Do you eat the cost or risk yet another 1-star review?  

This blog looks at how wheelchair dealers can cover that gap, how much you can earn and what a good warranty program can actually take off your plate.  

Why every warranty road ends up at the dealer’s table  

Alright, then, let's skip the small talk and dive right into the wild ride that is being a dealer.  

When your customer has an issue, they see your logo on the invoice and call you. You ring the manufacturer expecting a quick team effort but instead walk straight into a bureaucratic carnival mirror.

First and foremost, you meet the ever-familiar enemy of reason - the warranty fine print.  
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Then you read what brands like Pride rules out - damage from abuse, including the product being dropped or subjected to severe impact or crush, along with misuse, negligence, battery fluid spillage, and improper storage.

Read that list again. It describes an ordinary week in the life of a wheelchair.

And even when the failure does qualify as a defect, the fine print keeps going. Pride covers component costs while explicitly excluding labor, service calls, and freight without prior clearance. Journey Health & Lifestyle states outright that its warranty on mobility products does not include any labor charges for installing a component.

For a category where time is of the essence, all of that can cause enormous inconvenience.  

And God forbid, the chair went down a wrong  curb - there is no conversation at all. Your customer is holding a hefty repair quote, where a joystick controller alone runs $200 to $500.  

Maybe you’re thinking you’ll find someone local and cover the labor costs yourself.

Except the manufacturer also gets to decide who counts as that “someone.”  

Pride, for one, requires warranty work to be done by an authorized Pride or Quantum provider. Let anyone else near it, and the coverage that remains can disappear, since Pride voids electronic assembly claims where the damage comes from parts not purchased through an authorized provider.

Some power chairs even need a software passcode or a physical key before anyone can touch them. Hint- they are not easy to get a hold of.  

So you go back to the manufacturer, and they return you to where you started. At this point, Pride’s manual has a line specifically for people who bought over the internet, pointing them to its website or an authorized provider. Drive Medical asks its internet and drop-ship customers to ship returns back themselves.

How do common dealer workarounds pan out?  

As an honest person in the trade, before a negative review can blemish your store’s reputation, you spend a lot of time and effort trying to find workarounds. Yes, even if that means paying some bills out of goodwill.  

One of the easiest things some dealers do is simply become a courier service where the customer ships the unit to you, and you ship it to the manufacturer.

This way you get to tell your customer that the manufacturer decides whether to repair or replace it and that you aren’t involved in that decision. But this is neither an efficient nor a sustainable choice.  

Some dealers end up offering complementary add-ons  

Mobility Scooters Direct builds coverage into the sale and includes a complimentary in-home service plan for most of what it sells.  

That means the dealer is basically funding a service, and the customer whose chair took a significant curb still gets nothing. Misuse, wear on tires and armrest pads, and body panel damage are all excluded.  

Or you let a marketplace own the program

The shortcut is renting a marketplace’s program where coverage is handled with zero effort, and the plan belongs to the marketplace, along with the renewal, the data, and the customer relationship you paid to acquire.

Moreover, Walmart' Accident Plan is reserved for select portable electronics like laptops and phones. Amazon too has similar policies for accidental damage.  

This brings us to the lit-up end of the tunnel that most dealers prefer: a third-party plan at your own checkout.  

What does a good warranty program look like

Here are a few things to get you started on your hunt:

• Ask whether accidents are covered at all, and what the provider counts as one

Drops and impacts are the obvious answer. Liquid entering the electronics and a surge through the charger are the causes that are often overlooked. And the frame matters more than anything else on the list, because cracked welds and separated joints are where the real money sits. A plan that covers the electronics and stops at the chassis has covered the cheaper half.

• Then there's the question of how the repair physically happens

A 300-pound scooter is not going in a box your customer tapes shut on her own, so in-home service or arranged pickup is the difference between coverage on paper and coverage she can use.

• Check when the coverage begins

This is where providers get vague.  

Coverage begins when the manufacturer warranty ends, they'll say, which is a reasonable answer to a complicated question. It's worth asking which warranty, though, because the battery expires in six months, the electronics in two years, and the frame may never expire.  

An accident keeps no schedule at all. It can happen the week the chair arrives, while every one of those clocks is still running and not one of them covers it.

Some questions worth asking before you sign

Who takes the call is the first one

Ask directly, since support means different things at different companies. Sometimes it’s a team calling your customer. Sometimes it’s a portal where you log the claim yourself. Both are legitimate.  

On our side at SureBright, customers file directly with us through their customer portal, and we handle the claim from there.

Then ask what stands behind the plan financially

This question is especially important on days when many claims come in at once. Ask who the obligor is and how the obligations are secured. The NAIC model act sets out three paths - a reimbursement insurance policy, a funded reserve account, or net worth at a state-specified threshold. Any established provider will tell you which one they use.

SureBright carries the financial risk on claims, so you pay nothing when one is filed.  

Ask about licensing as well

Florida, for instance, requires service warranty associations that sell to its residents to obtain a state license. And read who the contract names as parties, because in Maine, Missouri and New Jersey, some service contracts are agreements between the customer, the provider and the retailer. That retailer is you, so it’s worth knowing what you're agreeing to.

Then ask some practical questions

Will it cover everything you sell?

Does coverage extend when you add forty SKUs next quarter? SureBright uses its Gen AI to map coverage and pricing to your catalog as your inventory changes, so new SKUs get qualified without you touching a spreadsheet.

Can customers buy it at your Shopify checkout and over the phone, since plenty of this equipment still sells to someone who wants to talk to a human first? Ours works across ecommerce platforms, marketplaces, in-store POS and telesales, and most stores are live within about two business days.

And ask what it pays you, given service contracts commonly run around 20% of the product price in categories like consumer electronics, which brings us to our final question.

Does it make sense for your business?

The economics of the program matter just as much. What does it mean for your business, and what does the provider expect from you in return?

Look at what you earn on each plan, whether you pay anything when a claim comes in, and how much work your team needs to put in to sell and support it.

To see what the numbers could look like for your business, plug your own sales and product mix into SureBright’s ROI Calculator.

None of this takes more than one call. And the answers show you which provider is best suited to the way you actually sell.