A service contract often arrives as a base agreement with optional pieces attached: a rider that adds a system, a bundle that joins several products under a single document, or an extension that lengthens the term. Each piece can change the total you agree to pay and the list of items the contract reads as covered. The quoted base price is only the starting line.
Identify every attached item
Ask the seller to list each rider, bundle, and extension by name. Compare that list with the one you were quoted. A rider that was described in conversation but is missing from the printed form is a question to put in writing before you sign.
Check whether each add-on keeps its own terms
Some riders carry their own term, waiting period, exclusions, and cancellation route. If a rider runs on a different clock than the base contract, its renewal and end dates may differ from the rest. Write each date on the same page so you can see them together.
Separate the add-on charge from the base charge
Ask how each add-on is charged: added to the upfront total, billed separately, or spread across a payment plan. Ask whether a payment plan adds a finance charge. Work out the total you will have paid by the end of the term, then compare it with the base contract alone. The gap is the add-on cost, and it belongs in your notes.
Ask whether a bundle can be split
A bundle may be sold at a single combined figure even though its parts have different coverage. Ask whether you can drop a part and keep the others, how the total would change on paper, and whether dropping a part removes a discount on another part. Get each answer in writing.
What this guide does not do
This guide gives no prices and does not say what any company's add-on covers, costs, or excludes. The published figures for each state are in the tables on this site. Each state page also says which rules this edition has read and which it has not. Where a page says a rule was not read, treat that as an open question to put to the seller and to the statute, not as a finding either way.