npower hometeam praised by financial expert Jasmine Birtles

01 Jun 2011

npower hometeam has been named by Jasmine Birtles has a good example of a company who shares its 'no claims' cost savings with customers.

Broadcaster, financial expert and founder of Moneymagpie.com, Jasmine Birtles, has attacked British businesses which profit from insurance, cover and care products and then fail to share the cost savings with those customers who don't make a claim.

Birtles has called for businesses to offer a form of 'no claims bonus' cash back and it seems British families feeling the squeeze agree. A survey of 2,000 consumers* released shows that nearly 80 per cent believe they should receive an annual cash pay-out if they don't call on an insurance or care product.

Her comments add to the on-going PPI debate which has seen banks come under increasing pressure over insurance products. Yet Birtles is quick to point out that the problem is wide-spread across the consumer market.

She explained: "All sorts of corporations, from banks to insurance companies and energy providers, clearly benefit from cost to serve savings when customers don't claim against their products or policies, but where's the reward for these customers? Good business is a two-way thing where both sides should benefit. As the cost of living continues to rise, wouldn't it be nice to see more big businesses sharing these savings with some sort of cash back?

"npower's hometeam 50 boiler and central heating care is a good example, as it's priced the same as British Gas' homecare, but offers customers 50% cash back if they don't have an emergency call out during their 12 month care plan. Currently, npower is the only boiler care provider offering anything like this.

"npower estimates it will be pay out more than £700,000 in cash back over the next 12 months, but if all energy providers did this, there could be cash back of more than £500million in customers' pockets from the boiler care market alone."**

If businesses followed this advice it actually might benefit them, as 81 per cent of consumers questioned in the npower survey said they would be more likely to choose a product if it offered some sort of cash back.

Ends

Notes to Editors:
*Survey conducted by npower in May 2011.
**npower research 2010 showed that 33 per cent of homeowners had some sort of care product to cover the cost of servicing and repairing their boiler, hot water or central heating system. Number of UK households based on Census figures 2011. Research from Which? suggests that at least one in three boilers may have a problem within the first six years. Cash back figure based on providers paying out £96 cash back.

About npower:
npower is one of the top energy suppliers to the UK business market, serving over 238,000 small to medium sized enterprise sites and around 17,000 industrial and commercial customers, with over 100,000 sites.

npower hometeam 50 installs, repairs and offers gas boiler service in additions to offering a wide variety of heating care options.