Spike in complaints related to load shedding damage

Eskom has been struggling to keep the lights on over the past week. 

 

The country was plunged into stage 6 load shedding over the weekend, which was later downgraded to stage 5.

 

With the power being shut off and on repeatedly - day and night - the ombudsman says the bulk of insurance claims and complaints relate to damages to household appliances and other devices.

 READ: Nersa told pouring more money into Eskom 'won't help'

 "In our annual report that was released earlier on in the year, we saw that household content insurance disputes related to damage caused by power surges increased from 6% in 2019 to 16% in 2021,” says the ombudsman’s Eunine Dlamini.  

 

“This shows a 10% increase from that we can assume that there will be a further increase taken into consideration the power outages experienced in the past few month as well as in the past few days."

 

And with power surges now an everyday occurrence, Dlamini is urging people to revisit their policy documents.

 

“Sometimes you do find that the consumer doesn't have that particular cover and this could be for the reason that the insurance doesn't offer a power surge cover, or that the insurance does offer power surge cover but at an additional premium."