Storm Austen power cut, what you can claim and from whom

Storm Austen arrived overnight. The amber warning for Cornwall and parts of Devon ran until 10am, with gusts of 60 to 70mph and up to 80mph on exposed headlands, and BBC Weather listed power cuts among the likely consequences.

If your electricity went off, two different parties may owe you something, and it helps to know which.

The first is your local network operator, the company that runs the wires, not the supplier that bills you. Ofgem sets the payments. In storm category 1, a home gets £90 after 24 hours without power, or after 48 hours in category 2, then £45 for every further six hours, up to £2,235. Those categories depend on faults on the network, not on the Met Office warning colours.

The network operator pays for the wait, not for what the wait spoils.

UK Power Networks says plainly that it is not liable for food lost from a fridge freezer, and points customers to their home insurance. Many contents policies include freezer cover. Admiral, for example, covers spoiled freezer food up to £1,000 depending on the level of cover, and lists freezers over ten years old and food that has not actually spoiled among the things it is unlikely to pay for.

Here is the detail worth sitting with. Freezer cover sits inside contents insurance with its own limit, and your excess may be larger than the loss. Check the schedule before you claim, not after.

While the power is off, keep the freezer door shut. Before you throw anything away, photograph the contents, list what was lost and note when the power went and came back. UK Power Networks says most insurers contact it directly to confirm an outage.

The storm payment and the insurance claim are separate things. You may be owed both.