Mainers who get offers in the mail to buy water line insurance are being warned that such offers may be misleading, according to municipal officials in southern and central Maine.

The company circulating the letters says it is not trying to mislead anyone.

On Tuesday, two residents in St. Albans in Somerset County reported getting letters saying that they are responsible for maintaining the section of pipe that carries water from water mains to their homes, according to Town Manager Rhonda Stark. However, residents of the town are not served by municipal water lines, relying instead on wells.

“I’m afraid that the elderly or other residents will get sucked in,” said Stark, who also got the notice at her home in Canaan.

Police in Buxton posted a Facebook warning Wednesday about the letters. The post called it “a scam going around the town. We are aware of it. As always please don’t give funds to anyone you don’t know.”

HomeServe USA Repair Management Corp., the company that sent the letters, is based in Connecticut and sells repair plans and insurance for plumbing, electrical, and heating and cooling systems. Its clients include the Portland Water District, which has used the company to sell water line insurance since 2006.

But HomeServe has been cited in three states – Kentucky, Ohio and Massachusetts – for deceptive advertising and in 2011 was ordered to pay $75,000 to a consumer aid fund in Massachusetts to address allegations of unfair and deceptive advertising.

Though recipients often don’t have water lines that can be insured, the letters assume otherwise.

“Your water company is responsible for installing, and continuing to maintain, the water main in your street. Your water line branches off the water main and is your responsibility,” the letter states, going on to say that if the line were to break, homeowners could face thousands of dollars in expenses. It does state that the insurance is optional.

The company says that it has made changes to its advertising since the action by the Massachusetts attorney general and that it has no way of knowing whether customers get water from a well or through a public water line.

“We are hardly a fraud,” said Myles Meehan, a spokesman for HomeServe. “These are optional coverages. If it’s not applicable to you as a homeowner, you can toss it in the trash.”

The letter sent to St. Albans and Buxton residents is personalized with a heading that reads “curb valve to home foundation responsibility” and inserts the homeowner’s name. The heading also asks recipients to respond within 30 days.

The company sells its insurance nationwide and claims 8,000 established customers in southern Maine. HomeServe is trying to expand in other parts of the state, Meehan said.

The Maine Attorney General’s Office recently has received five inquiries about the letters, spokesman Tim Feeley said.

“This kind of falls under the category of buyer beware. It’s technically not illegal to offer this, but it’s probably something that people want to scrutinize and think long and hard about whether they need water line insurance,” Feeley said.

In some areas, such as the Portland Water District service area, the company contracts with cities to provide insurance to water line customers. Although water line breaks on private property are rare, insurance was a service that the district wanted to be able to offer its customers, said Michelle Clements, a spokeswoman for the district, which serves 11 communities in southern Maine.

“I think they have different models, where sometimes I guess they go into markets without that partnership, which I could see causing some confusion,” Clements said.

HomeServe has been accredited with the Better Business Bureau since February. Though the group gives the company a grade of A-minus, it has received 314 complaints about HomeServe in the last three years.