Industry - Water

It is really awesome to be reminded of the deep power of positive stories when happy customers relay their experiences to the media. Warranty programs have an amazing ability to positively impact the reputation of their parent utilities through the stories of residential emergencies being solved.

Case in point – this customer in Watertown, CT, was so impressed by the team at Homeowner Safety Valve, the program operated by Aquarion Company, that they went to their local newspaper with the story. Great positive publicity for Watertown Fire District, Aquarion Company and Homeowner Safety Valve. Well done team!

The article is available here: http://www.primepublishers.com/towntimesnews/opinion/letters_to_editor/grateful-for-fire-district-recommendation/article_3f53c31c-feb5-11e6-8510-4bab781587b0.html

Lead service lines have been one of the most actively discussed pain points in recent years. Private lead lines can represent a real risk to homeowners and – whether fair or not – the reputations of utilities and municipalities. A good summary of the issue is available in the AWWA Journal – here: http://www.awwa.org/publications/journal-awwa/abstract/articleid/57880483.aspx

 

States are starting to take action to enforce replacement under certain circumstances – this example is in Massachusetts: http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/massdep/water/drinking/lead-service-line-replacement-requirements.html

 

Ordinarily the private section is replaced at the homeowner expense – but instances of municipality – funded replacement in certain areas are appearing too. This one is very recently in the news headlines in Pueblo, Colorado: http://www.chieftain.com/news/pueblo/5557176-120/lead-service-lines-pueblo.

 

Pueblo introduced their own mandatory service line repair program to all residential customers in May 2015: details here http://www.pueblowater.org/service-line-replacement-program-faq.html

 

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Nicks View –  Although mandatory programs will not be a fit in most circumstances, there is a potential route for municipalities and utilities to also consider optional warranty programs as a method of raising surplus funds that can be deployed to support a subsidized rolling process of private lead service line replacement. This will only be applicable in certain situations and will take time, but for some could be a win-win for everyone involved.

The last 12 months or so have seen at least two examples of coverage for residential water service lines surface as retail insurance, backed by brokerage networks and supported by major underwriting insurers. The use of retail insurance (this is different to using an insurance company as an underwriter of warranties / service contracts, which is common) does exist elsewhere with some of the large industry participants, but is generally offered by exception where regulations demand it.

 

Example 1: ServLine in Tennessee

This is provided by SunBelt Insurance and backed by the Hannover insurance company as underwriter. It possesses affinity partnerships with Tennessee water systems such as the North West Utility District. Their model is to provide mandatory and / or optional coverage only via the utility, the insurance is not available independently. The insurance element does allow for cash reimbursement, and ServLine have leveraged that to provide leak adjustment payments. URL: http://www.nwud.net/servline-program

Note that ServLine possess an affinity relationship with the National Rural Water Association, in a manner similar as SLWA’s (now HomeServe) relationship with the National League of Cities.

 

Example 2: National Water Company in Washington State

NWC looks to be a collaboration of insurance brokerages who have an affinity partnership with the AAA in WA. There appear to be no formal utility marketing partnerships as of yet, although they are associates of the WA Association of Water and Sewer Districts.  URL: http://www.nationalwatercompany.com/

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Nicks View: Retail insurance can be a custom job to the state in which it is sold, due to the burdensome and fragmented nature of the regulatory landscape. Restrictions often exist on pricing, onerous restricted cash requirements may exist and product development lifecycles can be very long. I am unsure how providing these products as pure insurance can be easily scaled beyond state boundaries where national warranty competitors already exist and major utilities can commence their own programs without it being treated as insurance. That being said, we should not underestimate the power of local relationships in the brokerage world to develop these programs locally. The promotional video for ServLine on the NRWA site hints at this (URL: http://nrwa.org/affinity/servline/ ). Insurance also is a potential solution to the problem of water loss bill adjustment, which is, as a whole, weakly addressed by warranty providers.

An article published by the AWWA which talks about how the ownership boundary between the utility and the customer is becoming increasingly blurred – especially in situations of contamination, such as occurred in Flint, MI.

I think this is relevant for warranty-minded utilities because warranty programs could be a great way of demonstrating (and legally evidencing) communication to customers of their ownership responsibilities – and therefore a good reason why systems should start or join warranty programs if they can!.

The article is here: http://www.awwa.org/publications/connections/connections-story/articleid/4474/litigation-trend-could-hit-utilities.aspx

 

Eric Palm comes from Direct Energy, a subsidiary of British Gas (the home service plan industry leader in the UK)

Full report.