05 Jul 2024
In general, electricity businesses like Transpower cannot guarantee there will never be interruptions to electricity supply. For this reason, there are no direct methods available for people or businesses to approach us for compensation.
However, given the particular circumstances surrounding the loss of supply in Northland, we are working closely with electricity retailers and insurers to provide compensation to those who have suffered losses.
We apologise again for the inconvenience caused by the outage and thank those affected for their patience while we restored full security of supply to Northland.
Residential claims
Residential electricity consumers can make claims for loss or damage under the Consumer Guarantees Act.
You start this process by contacting your electricity retailer (the company you pay your bill to). They will assess your claim. If your claim is accepted, it will be paid to you via your retailer on your monthly bill.
The key aspects of our criteria for accepting claims are:
- the loss claimed must be a direct result of the interruption or restoration of power supply
- you must provide reasonable evidence of the loss
- the loss claimed must be reasonably commensurate with the length of the interruption of your electricity supply and the time it occurred.
We are aiming for a reasonable, common-sense approach. Consumer NZ has a helpful guide for making a claim, including a template, here.
Business claims
In most instances the Consumer Guarantees Act does not provide an avenue for business claims. Businesses should contact their insurers regarding the impacts of this outage. Insurers will work through the claim process and raise claims for compensation with us.
Time frame for submitting claims
To manage this process in an efficient way, we will accept claims made to retailers before close of business on 31 July 2024. The time frame for claims made via insurers will vary according to different insurers.
Time frame for paying claims
We have asked electricity retailers to pay residential claims and claim the money they pay back from us after 31 July. The time frame for residential claims will vary depending on how each retailer runs these processes.
The time frame for claims made via insurers will vary according to different insurers and claim processes.