Should the Power Company Reimburse Me?

PurpleHaze

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jul 10, 2019
This is somewhere between a vent and asking for opinion. Yesterday here in central Alabama it was a beautiful sunny day with temps in the mid 90s and no storms at all. The power went out about 11am and got random updates through the day as to when they expected power to be back on. At first it was 1pm, then 5pm, then 9pm, and finally they just said we dont know when it will be back on. As of now power is still out and expected time to restore power is 1pm.

We are pretty sure just about everything in our refrigerater and freezer will need to be trashed. I'm not sure how much that will cost but it wont be cheap. We also called it around 9:30 last night and went to a hotel. At that time with it was stiffling inside and nearing 80 degrees. So overall this outage is going to cost me a nice little sum of cash. I think I could stomach that better if there was a tornado, or ice storm, or some other natural cause for the outage. However this occured during a normal summer day and is affecting a small area. Our homeowners insurance would reimburse us if the outage was due to a storm. The power company is saying they can only reimburse us if theoutage is thier fault and of course they arent saying that. Overall very frustrating and Im 99.99% sure nothing will come out of this to help offset the money I am out but hey at least I can vent here.
 
you are lucky if your homeowner's policy has that provision-i've never had that not that i would put in a claim for even a couple thousand in lost food b/c once i paid my deductible it would be pennies on the dollar (and then my premiums would go up).

that said-our utilities (prior and current) won't pay for any food losses. it's clearly in the fine print. their fault or not.
 
Our power goes out several times a year, for an hour, day, once 2 weeks. Whether it’s weather (which is most of the time) or a blown transformer, we get nothing. Never thought to get a hotel room, heck its been 82 degrees in our house all week due to a heatwave.
 
I don't think the power company is on the hook for any food loss, but also the food shouldn't go bad in a day. As long as you keep the refrigerator doors closed, it should maintain temperature for a while.

That's one good thing about my sad, single-guy firdge - if I had an extended power outage I stand to lose some ice and maybe an already half-empty half-gallon of milk. 🤣
 




Sad single guy refrigerator. Is this yours, Brian?

View attachment 692775

Close, but that has far more food in it than mine! I do always have a bunch of soda too, but that won't go bad if it gets warm. The ketchup and mustard is about right though, along with some other condiments.

Actually, in all seriousness, I do have food. I usually make soemthign on monday and it lasts for the week and I eat out on weekends. So, if you look on a Saturday, tehre is practically nothing, but right after grocery shopping I do have about 4 lunches and 4 dinners in there. Sunday is typically a can of soup or ramen or something.
 
This is somewhere between a vent and asking for opinion. Yesterday here in central Alabama it was a beautiful sunny day with temps in the mid 90s and no storms at all. The power went out about 11am and got random updates through the day as to when they expected power to be back on. At first it was 1pm, then 5pm, then 9pm, and finally they just said we dont know when it will be back on. As of now power is still out and expected time to restore power is 1pm.

We are pretty sure just about everything in our refrigerater and freezer will need to be trashed. I'm not sure how much that will cost but it wont be cheap. We also called it around 9:30 last night and went to a hotel. At that time with it was stiffling inside and nearing 80 degrees. So overall this outage is going to cost me a nice little sum of cash. I think I could stomach that better if there was a tornado, or ice storm, or some other natural cause for the outage. However this occured during a normal summer day and is affecting a small area. Our homeowners insurance would reimburse us if the outage was due to a storm. The power company is saying they can only reimburse us if theoutage is thier fault and of course they arent saying that. Overall very frustrating and Im 99.99% sure nothing will come out of this to help offset the money I am out but hey at least I can vent here.
Unless you can show the outage was not only within the electric company's control, but SHOULD have been forseen and prevented, I don't see anyway they're on the hook for food or a hotel room. We've had outages caused by a driver taking out an electric pole. We've had outages caused by wildlife (ie: squirrels) getting into the transformer and shorting it out. I'm sure we've had outages caused by equipment failures. It's not just weather that can cause problems.

Personally, we would have suffered through the night, and probably a 2nd night before worrying about a hotel. The food I wouldn't worry about as of yet.
 
Buy 2 bags of ice - put one in your fridge and one in your freezer. It will buy you more time on keeping your food good (and should be available at any store since you have a localized power outage)...and it's about $5 total.
 
This is somewhere between a vent and asking for opinion. Yesterday here in central Alabama it was a beautiful sunny day with temps in the mid 90s and no storms at all. The power went out about 11am and got random updates through the day as to when they expected power to be back on. At first it was 1pm, then 5pm, then 9pm, and finally they just said we dont know when it will be back on. As of now power is still out and expected time to restore power is 1pm.

We are pretty sure just about everything in our refrigerater and freezer will need to be trashed. I'm not sure how much that will cost but it wont be cheap. We also called it around 9:30 last night and went to a hotel. At that time with it was stiffling inside and nearing 80 degrees. So overall this outage is going to cost me a nice little sum of cash. I think I could stomach that better if there was a tornado, or ice storm, or some other natural cause for the outage. However this occured during a normal summer day and is affecting a small area. Our homeowners insurance would reimburse us if the outage was due to a storm. The power company is saying they can only reimburse us if theoutage is thier fault and of course they arent saying that. Overall very frustrating and Im 99.99% sure nothing will come out of this to help offset the money I am out but hey at least I can vent here.
Is the outage due to negligence on their part? Failure to maintain their equipment? That type of thing?
If so, you can always ask. I mean, they'd probably say no but does it hurt to ask.
If it's some other reason then just move on. Things happen.

I've been every so grateful for our power company installing a smart grid several years ago. We've not had any power outage more than 5, 10 min ever since. I'm sure it's possible a massive storm could come through and do major damage but thus far, small storms, transformers going out, etc, the smart grid has done it's job
 
No, they won’t and shouldn’t reimburse you. It happens.

If you don’t open your fridge/freezer doors, your food should be fine. We’ve lost power for days before and it’s been fine.

While an inconvenience for sure, and likely miserable given the heat, this isn’t that unusual.
 
Honestly, this has never occurred to me, nor have I ever heard of the notion to seek compensation from the power company when the power goes out. I suppose you'd have to be able to prove that the outage was a direct result of negligence or intentional, then you'd have to provide receipts for all the spoiled food?????
I don't think this is a valid claim.

*I'm sure someone will chime in with a instance or article of this one time a power company had to reimburse so & so ...
 
Honestly, this has never occurred to me, nor have I ever heard of the notion to seek compensation from the power company when the power goes out. I suppose you'd have to be able to prove that the outage was a direct result of negligence or intentional, then you'd have to provide receipts for all the spoiled food?????
I don't think this is a valid claim.

*I'm sure someone will chime in with a instance or article of this one time a power company had to reimburse so & so ...
Actually, this happened last summer. Fortunately we had just returned from a vacation and didn’t food shop yet, we were out over a week. https://www.tdworld.com/disaster-re...mers-for-food-medicines-spoiled-during-isaias
 

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