Eversource Not Planning On Food Reimbursement After Outages

CONNECTICUT — There are growing calls for Eversource and United Illuminating to reimburse customers for spoiled food and medication during days power outages after Tropical Storm Isaias.

New York utility Con Edison announced it would reimburse customers up to $540 for spoiled food if they were without power for 48 or more consecutive hours. Customers can also be reimbursed for prescription medications that went bad due to lack of refrigeration.

"Eversource and UI need to do the right thing as ConEd has done in New York and reimburse consumers now for lost food and prescriptions," said Connecticut Attorney General William Tong. "This needs to come out of shareholder—not ratepayer—funds. They have millions of dollars in profits they can use to cover this cost immediately without putting the burden back on ratepayers."

Gov. Ned Lamont also called on Eversource to issue reimbursements.

"If Eversource is half-thinking or listening to this, do something proactive, don’t make us … make you do this," Lamont said during an interview with WCBS radio. "Get out there and tell the customers you understand their pain."

Eversource encourages customers to reach out to their insurance carriers to see if homeowner or rental insurance will cover losses. It doesn't plan on providing reimbursements, citing that the outages were an act of nature.

"We understand how difficult it is for our customers to be without power," said Mitch Gross, a spokesman for Eversource. "As this was an act of nature we don’t provide reimbursement, but we encourage our customers to reach out to their insurance carrier to see if it’s in their homeowners or renters policy."

UI spokesman Edward Crowder said the company looks forward to working with regulators to review response plans.

"We recognize these are challenging times for our customers and that the outages caused by Tropical Storm Isaias presented an additional unplanned burden," he said. "Our team prepared in advance for this destructive storm based on the protocols established in conjunction with our regulators and we look forward to working with our regulators as they review our preparedness and response plans. Given that this is just the start of storm season, we welcome the opportunity to work together with regulators and government to explore whether there are other things we should collectively be evaluating in the future to help address the impact on customers."

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal also called for Eversource customers to be reimbursed. He went further and said CEO James Judge should resign and regulators should look at potentially breaking up the company.

A handful of people have filed a lawsuit against Eversource. They are seeking compensation for spoiled food and other costs associated with the outage, according to The Hour. They are looking at potentially getting class-action status for the lawsuit.

Week-long outages weren’t a reality for the electric customers serviced by a municipal-owned power company. Around a third of Norwich lost power after the storm, but Norwich Public Utilities restored power to 99 percent of customers within 48 hours, with many getting power just hours after the storm passed, according to CT News Junkie.

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