MWR Life Review: Third-party telephone services
My Warranty Rewards was launched in late 2013 by founders Jay Tuerk and Yoni Ashurov.
The company marketed a $29.97 a month warranty service, provided by a separate company which was seemingly also owned by Tuerk and Ashurov.
The trouble with the original My Warranty Rewards business model was, although it did have retail, it was entirely possible for an affiliate to ignore it.
One sale of the warranty subscription was required to qualify for commissions, which itself could be an affiliate’s own subscription.
Thus if an affiliate signed up, bought a subscription and then focused on recruiting other affiliates who did the same, a closed chain recruitment loop was created.
Whether or not that wound up being the primary focus of My Warranty Rewards I can’t say, but in late April of this year the company rebranded to “MWR Life”.
Read on for a full review of the MWR Life MLM business opportunity.
The Company
While Yoni Ashurov (right) still maintains an executive position in MWR Life as CEO (he was President of My Warranty Rewards), Jay Tuerk appears to have left MWR Life management.
At first I thought he might have left the company completely, but Tuerk still advertises on MWR Life on his Facebook page.
Tuerk’s name however does not appear anywhere on the MWR Life website, so his role within the company, if any, is unclear.
The MWR Life Product Line
Whereas My Warranty Rewards only offered a warranty plan for $29.97 a month, MWR Life has expanded this offering to include
- 24/7 Telemedicine – “24/7/365 access to board certified physicians who can visit with you either via phone or video”
- 24/7 Total Home Tech Support – “using remote access, our certified techs will solve your technology frustrations for all types of electronic devices and both hardware and software issues”
- 24/7 Emergency Roadside Assistance – “coverage includes towing, flat tire assistance, fuel delivery, battery jumps and lock-out assistance”
- Identity Theft Protection – “emergency response kit, fraud specialist consultation, attorney consultation and up to $25,000 Expense and Lost Wages Reimbursement”
- Legal Access Plus – “talk to an attorney about any personal or business legal matter”
- Financial Coaching – “our money coaches are only a phone call away and provide the advanced education, accountability, and support”
- Tax Hotline – “consultations are done by phone, and you even have online access to budget calculators, tax tips and tax law change”
- Worldwide Air Medical Evacuation – “transportation to a hospital is covered should you require medical attention”
These services are branded under “MWR Life Essentials” and cost $29.97 a month.
A “Vehicle Protection Plan” is also available, however the cost of this plan is currently not provided on the MWR Life website. Having a look at the agreement though, it looks like the monthly cost of the plan might be determined by the type of car being covered.
As with My Warranty Rewards, all services provided are sourced from third-party merchants:
(MWR Life) has entered into a marketing relationship with the Service Providers to market and sell their respective Services through the (MWR Life Essentials) Plan.
Each Service accessible through the Plan shall be provided by the Service Provider offering that particular Service.
(MWR Life) is only a Marketing and Administrative Agent for each Service Provider, and provides administration services,
including collection of monthly payments, to each Service Provider.
The MWR Life Compensation Plan
The MWR Life compensation plan pays affiliates to sell MWR Life’s service plans. Affiliates are also paid to recruit new MWR Life affiliates, with direct commissions offered and residuals via a unilevel compensation structure.
Note that the MWR Life compensation plan makes no differentiation between retail customers and affiliates, with both referred to as “customers”.
In the interests of simplicity, I’ve maintained this terminology in the analysis below.
Customer Points
Various aspects of the MWR Life compensation plan are tied to the generation of Customer Points.
1 Customer Point is awarded when someone signs up for MWR Life’s Life Essentials, Electronics Protection or Vehicle Protection plans.
The customer signing up can be a retail customer, a MWR Life affiliate themselves or another affiliate they’ve personally recruited.
Commission qualification is tied to the generation of Customer Points, with every MWR Life affiliate required to generate at least 2 Customer Points every month.
MWR Life Affiliate Ranks
There are eight affiliate ranks within the MWR Life compensation plan.
Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:
- Independent Reseller – sign up as a MWR Life affiliate ($99)
- Advanced Reseller – recruit at least two affiliates and generate at least 1 Customer Point
- Manager – recruit at last three affiliates and generate at least 3 Customer Points
- Senior Manager – have three unilevel legs with at least one Manger ranked affiliate in them, and generate at least 5 Customer Points
- Area Manager – have three unilevel legs with at least one Senior Manger ranked affiliate in them, and generate at least 10 Customer Points
- District Manager – have three unilevel legs with at least one Area Manger ranked affiliate in them, and generate at least 10 Customer Points
- Regional Manager – have three unilevel legs with at least one District Manger ranked affiliate in them, and generate at least 10 Customer Points
- National Manager – have three unilevel legs with at least one Regional Manger ranked affiliate in them, and generate at least 10 Customer Points
Quick Start Bonus
The Quick Start Bonus rewards a MWR Life affiliate for signing up someone with an offered service.
If a MWR Life affiliate generates 5 Customer Points within 30 days of joining the company, they are paid $100.
If an additional 5 Customer Points are generated within an affiliate’s first 60 days (10 total), an additional $100 is paid out.
Rank Advancement Promotion
If a MWR Life affiliate qualifies at the Manager rank within 30 days of joining the company, they receive a $250 bonus.
Qualifying as a Senior Manager within 60 days of joining results in an additional $500 bonus.
Going on to qualify as an Area Manager within 90 days of joining pays out $1000.
Customer Bonus
For each customer a MWR Life affiliate signs up, a $25 bonus is paid out.
If a personally recruited MWR Life affiliate generates 2 Customer Points within 30 days of joining the company, an additional bonus is paid to the affiliate who recruited them as follows:
- Manager $50
- Senior Manager – $75
- Area Manager – $125
- District Manager – $145
- Regional Manager – $160
- National Manager – $175
Note that I’m not 100% sure on these figures. They appear to be in addition to the $25 offered at the IR rank, so I’ve added $25 to the figures quoted in the MWR Life compensation plan.
A residual Customer Bonus of $2 a month is also available, paid out on all customers acquired after an affiliate’s first customer.
Leadership Customer Residual Bonus
Personally recruited affiliates who generate at least two Customer Points within 30 days of joining, are added to a MWR Life affiliate’s “Management Organization”.
When these Management Organization affiliates sign up new customers, the following monthly bonuses are paid out:
- Manager – 50 cents
- Senior Manager – $1.50
- Area Manager – $3.50
- District Manager – $5
- Regional Manager – $6
- National Manager – $7
Unilevel Commissions
Residual commissions in MWR Life are paid out via a unilevel compensation structure.
A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):
In turn, if any level 1 affiliates go on to recruit new affiliates of their own, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.
If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.
Note that MWR Life cap payable unilevel levels at seven.
Commissions are paid out based on how many recruited affiliates there in a unilevel team, with how many levels of recruitment a MWR Life affiliate can earn on tied to their rank:
- levels 1 and 2 (Independent Reseller) – 50 cents per recruited affiliate
- level 3 (Independent Reseller) – $1 per recruited affiliate
- level 4 (Advanced Reseller) – $4 per recruited affiliate
- level 5 (Advanced Reseller) – $1 per recruited affiliate
- level 6 (Manager or higher) – $1 per recruited affiliate
- level 7 (Manager or higher) – $3 per recruited affiliate
Matching Bonus
MWR Life offer a 25% matching bonus on the Customer Bonus and residual unilevel commissions paid to personally recruited affiliates.
Recruitment Bonus
MWR Life affiliates are paid to recruit new affiliates and get those they recruited to do the same.
A bonus is paid out based on how many recruited affiliates are in a MWR Life affiliate’s downline as follows:
- 30 affiliates – $300
- 100 affiliates – $1000
- 350 affiliates – $5000
- 750 affiliates – $10,000
- 1500 affiliates – $25.000
- 3500 affiliates – $50,000
- 7500 affiliates – $100,000
Note that these requirements must be met for two consecutive months before a bonus is paid out. Also note that only 33% of the required quota can come from any one unilevel leg.
Health & Life Insurance Benefits
Once a MWR Life affiliate qualifies at the Area Manager rank and has at least 750 affiliates in their downline (max 33% from any one unilevel leg), they qualify for Health & Life Insurance Benefits.
This bonus sees MWR Life will put $500 a month towards health and/or life insurance.
If an affiliate does not wish to take out insurance, they can instead opt for a $250 a month cash bonus.
Car Bonus
To qualify for a Car Bonus, a MWR Life affiliate must be at the District Manager or higher rank and have a downline with at least 2500 customers (no more than 33% from one unilevel leg).
Once this qualification criteria is met, a MWR Life affiliate receives a $1000 a month payment on a Mercedes-Benz purchase or lease.
If an affiliate does not wish to lease or purchase a car, they can instead opt for a $500 cash bonus payment.
Home Bonus
To qualify for a Home Bonus, a MWR Life affiliate must be at the Regional Manager rank and have a downline with at least 5000 customers (no more than 33% from one unilevel leg).
Once this qualification criteria is met, a MWR Life affiliate receives a $3000 a month payment towards rent or a mortgage payment.
Note that there doesn’t appear to be a cash alternative for this bonus.
Joining MWR Rewards
Affiliate membership with MWR Rewards is $99 and then $30 a month.
If an affiliate signs up for a MWR plan ($29.97 a month), the $30 fee is waived. It is also waived once a MWR Life affiliate qualifies at the Manager or higher rank.
Conclusion
Whereas with My Warranty Rewards the same people running the company ran the service provider, MWR Life uses wholly third-party suppliers.
This introduces its own set of potential problems, namely support:
The Member agrees that the Company is neither the owner nor the supplier of the Services that the Member may access
through the Plan.The Member acknowledges that the Company is only acting as a Marketing and Administrative Agent
for each Service Provider and that the contract for the purchase of each Service offered through the Program shall be
between the Member and the Service Provider providing that particular Service.
Ideally no issues will crop up, but if they do, there’s no escaping that MWR Life have no say in the matter. By extension, neither do their affiliates.
Considering MWR Life customers signed up through an affiliate, and are paying MWR Life, being told they have to deal with a third-party service provider might cause confusion.
Unfortunately there’s no way around that, and it’s definitely something to keep in mind (over-promising in marketing could be a huge issue later down the track).
As for the compensation plan, retail is still very much available but, like it was in My Warranty Rewards, overshadowed by the potential for chain-recruitment.
For starters, the commissions paid out seem to be detached from the $29.97 fee paid each month.
MWR Life pay out a minimum $25 when a new customer is signed up. Are their service providers waiving fees for the first month or what? Where is that money otherwise coming from?
Throw in all the other Customer Point commissions, and that’s an awful lot to squeeze out of $29.97 a month. I might be missing something but it seems to me like the math doesn’t quite add up.
In any event, with no differentiation between retail customers and affiliates, it’s again entirely possible to qualify for commissions within a closed loop.
You sign up as a MWR Life affiliate, sign up to a service (which conveniently waives your $30 a month affiliate fee), and then recruit one more affiliate who does the same.
That makes you commission qualified, and then all you need to do is duplicate.
Affiliate rank advancement is tied to recruitment and Customer Points, which again is a closed loop if only affiliates are customers.
The unilevel commissions are a particularly dubious offender, offering a straight up recruitment incentive that is entirely detached from retail customer acquisition.
I suspect a lack of retail customers in My Warranty Rewards is what prompted the change to MWR Life, but after going through the compensation plan the same issues exist – if not at a greater magnitude than before.
Not helping is MWR Life’s “Founder’s Program”, which sees affiliates share in 5% of the company’s profits each quarter.
All the previous My Warranty Rewards affiliates as of April 25th were grandfathered in as Founders, with new affiliates required to recruit three new affiliates and generate 3 Customer Points before May 31st to qualify.
You can probably guess how many of those Customer Points are going to be generated by the recruited affiliates, in effect making the requirements one and the same (recruit three affiliates).
All of that said, if MWR Life affiliates can attract retail customers then there is something here. The comp plan and general vibe of the business model however actively work against that.
Oz, you need to change the headline. MWR is not in telephone services. Very Misleading!
Second, Jay Turek did not leave MWR life (Formerly My Warranty Rewards). He’s still one of the co-owners of the company with Yoni Ashurov who is now the CEO. Mr. Turek just focusing on the Warranty side (Matrix Warranty Solutions) which he and Mr. Ashurov still owns.
Second, the reason of the name change is due the fact they offered MWR Life Essentials services as you stated.
“MWR Life pay out a minimum $25 when a new customer is signed up. Are their service providers waiving fees for the first month or what? Where is that money otherwise coming from?”
It comes from the one-time $30 membership fee. MWR reps do have the option of waiving the fee when signing up customers, but they just won’t be paid the bonus.
“I suspect a lack of retail customers in My Warranty Rewards is what prompted the change to MWR Life, but after going through the compensation plan the same issues exist – if not at a greater magnitude than before.”
Incorrect! Persons who wanted to join MWR Life and doesn’t want to participate in the MLM side has the option to sell the memberships retail as a Sales Representative which includes bonuses and residuals on their customers.
Oz, it’s apparent that you’re not a fan of MLM structure period, regardless of whether its legal or not. However, many real estate or insurance agents do use the MLM structure in one form or another and nothing wrong with profit from leveraging.
Um, isn’t that they’re marketing? Third-party telephone services? Everything is by telephone. Heck I even got the term from the MWR Life website itself (can’t remember exactly where).
Thanks for clearing that up.
Hypotheticals don’t cancel out reality. If My Warranty Rewards had sold a ton of memberships to retail customers they wouldn’t have had to reboot.
I’ve acknowledged retail is entirely possible, just that it’s extremely unlikely. Thus you’re left with a closed-loop chain recruitment where only affiliates are using the third-party services.
And that ladies and gentlemen is called a cop out.
Oz, where does it said market Third Party Telephone services? MWR do resell services through third party companies.
(Ozedit: Offtopic derail attempt removed)
The various plan T&Cs reveal that pretty much everything (third-party services) is telephone based.
MWR Life as of August 1, 2015, is no longer offering the automobile warranty (Vehicle Protection Plan). They now have something called “Vehicle Repair Assist Plus”.
It now appears that Jay Turek did leave My Warranty Rewards earlier this year. Looks like they are not going to disrupt the vehicle warranty industry after all.
I’m sure there are a lot of upset distributors with this latest move. What a waste.
I know something was going wrong with this outfit right after their convention earlier this year when changes to service and compensation was made without informing the field. That’s when I left.
I came to Bing to see what the search results would come up with regarding MWR Life, and this is one of the first things I saw.
As one of the National Managers in this company I have worked extremely hard to build my business since June of 2014, and I can tell you first hand that we are not a perfect company, however after 10 years in the industry I can also tell you that we are leaps and bounds better that anything else out there.
We have real customers that buy our services without the opportunity attached, and have the most robust service offering in the industry.
I know Jay and Yoni personally and can tell you that Jay is not involved in the day to day operations because of his commitment to his family and Matrix which Jay and Yoni Co-own there is no hidden agenda there whatsoever.
We dropped the vehicle protection plan only because it was being taken advantage of by our customers and not profitable for the insurance companies that backed it, so we either had to raise the price and deductible or put something else in its place, basically it did not fit the mlm model very well.
As far as changes made without informing the field, we launched a new service offering at our convention and beefed up the comp plan making it more profitable to the field, that is not a sign of trouble in any sense of the word.
I am only trying to clear up any confusion with first hand facts, not here to argue with stipulations of people that are not involved in the business.
Best to all of you -Daniel
That’s nice. But why does MWR Life pay affiliates to recruit new affiliates?
Better than what? Extended warranty companies are a dime a dozen, sold in every retail store out there, some are even backed by big names like GE Insurance.
You can save the marketing speak for people who like the spiel, but the fact is nobody gives a **** about MWR, or it wouldn’t have to relaunch 2 times in 3 years. The started in June 2013 without MLM, added MLM in 2014, then rebranded in 2015.
If you call this “better”, I’d hate to see what “worse” really is.
K Chang, it’s apparently that you have a agenda against MLM companies like MWR Life. But if you think nobody give a s*** about it, then you are wrong, sir. MWR is gaining momentum and lot of reps are coming in the company by leaps and bounds
As Daniel pointed out, MWR has recently launch new services that’s extended beyond the warranty services that includes LIFE ESSENTIALS with 10 Essential Services that includes Tele-medicine, emergency roadside assistance, financial coaching, legal services and more… Its value worth over $200 a month for one INCREDIBLY LOW PRICE of $49.97
LIFESTYLE ADVANTAGE where people can saved $1000 towards TRAVEL, SHOPPING, DINING & MORE ANNUALLY also for $49.97.
The great thing about this service is that customers can signed up for free with vouchers to use these services for the first month.
What’s really great about this that if they Refer 3 people with the special customer link that enjoy any of our services they get their services for FREE for life! Therefore, its a WIN-WIN for both the reps and customers alike.
Plus we’ll be launching new services sduring their national convention this coming October.
BTW, Daniel also pointed our that the company may not be perfect, but they got sure their stuff together. Sorry to break out the sad news for you K Chang.
They are now looking to launch in the UK.
Just reading up more now.
MWR is now MWR Financial! Looks like another relaunch. Number 4. Home of The Instant Pay Raise.
Wonder how long this one will last?
Thanks for the heads up! I’ve added MWR Financial to the review list for a refresh.