Con Edison offering reimbursements for spoiled food and medicine

Consolidated Edison Inc. has announced that it will reimburse customers who had food or medicine spoil from power outages earlier this month.

The utility is offering individual customers who lost power for three consecutive days or more up to $225, or $515 with receipts, according to its announcement. Business owners are eligible for food spoilage reimbursements up to $10,200, also with receipts.

Con Edison typically offers reimbursements that result from failures in its distribution system, not from natural disasters.

The announcement comes after two weeks of criticism from customers and elected officials. They’re unhappy with the company’s response to two nor’easter storms ”“ on March 2 and 7 ”“ that knocked out power for several days in parts of the county. Westchester County Executive George Latimer has called on the heads of both Con Edison and NYSEG to resign, while Gov. Andrew Cuomo has opened an investigation into each company’s storm response.

The county’s Board of Legislators is calling on both companies to offer rebates or rate reductions to customers who lost power. The board also wants the companies to reimburse the county for the money it spent operating warming centers and paying overtime to first responders.

The board has invited Con Edison and NYSEG executives to appear at a special meeting on March 19.

“While recognizing the efforts of thousands of employees and mutual aid workers to restore power safely to over 200,000 customers, the company has acknowledged that it was unable to provide reliable restoration times for many customers,” Con Edison said in a statement announcing the reimbursement program.

Claims need to be filed within 30 days of the outage. For businesses, requests for reimbursement need to include an itemized list and supporting documents, such as receipts or photographs, according to Con Edison’s reimbursement forms.

More information on the company”™s rebate is available at its website here.