Damage Claim Policy

Damage Claim Procedure

1. Customer must make a verbal report to Dispatcher at the Emergency /Trouble Call Section, followed by a letter to the General Manager, within five (5) working days of incident. The letter must state the item(s) damaged, date and time of the incident, if available, and the circumstances surrounding the event that caused the damage.
   
   1. The information on the claim is forwarded to the Transmission & Distribution Manager to initiate a full investigation of the customer’s claim, with in 24 hours of the incident being reported
   2. Letters received after five (5) working days will be investigated at General Manager’s discretion. After eight (8) working days, claims are considered to be invalid.
2. Upon completion of the investigation, the Transmission and Distribution Manager will submit a report of the findings and recommendations to the General Manager
3. A letter is issued to the customer, by General Manager, no later than ten working days after receipt of the written claim.

Settlement is offered in the following situations:

1. Errors made by Company employees such as incorrectly terminating connections to service line, weather head or transformer.
2. Failure of the neutral connection either through loose connections, corroded connections, or breakage due to wear and tear on the Low Tension (LT) lines up to the Company’s service point. Exceptions to this are break age of the neutral due to third parties, kites, animals, vehicular accidents or, back-feeds caused by other customers.
3. Failure at the pole-mount transformer’s, High Tension (HT) or Low Tension (LT) terminals; voltage above or below 10% of the nominal voltage.
4. High Tension (HT) lines making contact with Low Tension (LT) lines resulting in high voltage at the customer’s electrical installation.
5. A Low Tension (LT) line making contact with the neutral on a 3-wire system
6. A faulty transformer giving rise to high voltage; volt age above or below 10% of the nominal voltage.
7. Short circuits on the secondary distribution up to the utility’s service point.
8. Improper line clearances resulting in short circuits, broken Low Tension (LT) and service neutrals.
9. Tree limbs breaking the service line or any conductor of service line, except when the tree is on customer’s property.
10. Short circuit on service wire damaging premises. Fires caused by fallen High Tension (HT) line or burning fuse or disconnect.

No settlement is offered in the following situations:

1. Outages or other events arising from lightning strikes, wind or rainstorms and other Acts of God.
2. Inadequacies or faults on the customer’s side of the electrical installation.
3. No protective devices on electrical equipment that is surge protectors at meter and/or distribution panel and/or at receptacle.
4. Loose connections on phase conductors, to any part of the circuit after the meter, which could result in under voltage conditions.
5. Interruption of service due to switching operations on the main transmission and distribution system.
6. Damage resulting from the actions of third parties.
7. Fallen trees on the company’s lines.

The General Manager may consider settlement where unusual conditions or circumstances exist, which merits special consideration, even though a settlement would not normally be offered. An example of this would be where the damage resulted from a problem that had previously been reported but misdiagnosed by the crew and required a return visit to correct the fault

Settlement amounts are assessed on the cost to repair the equipment to good working order.

If the equipment cannot be repaired, the Company requests that the equipment be brought in for assessment and the pre-incident market value of the equipment is offered. This is calculated based on the replacement value of an equivalent item less depreciation of an average of 10% per year. In some cases, for example, if faults on both the utility service and the customer installation can result in a power event, then a partial settlement is offered based on 50% of the repair or assessed value of the equipment. Assistance is often sought from the Company’s Insurance Company in determining settlement amounts.

The Company may also contract the services of technicians to carry out repairs if the customer is unable or unwilling to undertake the repairs himself/herself.

In the event a refrigerator is damaged, Customer must take precautionary measures to store refrigerated items as NEVLEC will not approve any claim(s) prior to an investigation and will therefore not be responsible for items spoiled.