Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell
Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell has asked the LPSC to investigate the HomeServe home-warranty program promoted to thousands of SWEPCO and CenterPoint Energy customers as insurance against failure of customer-owned electric and gas equipment. The monopoly SWEPCO electric and CenterPoint natural-gas utilities serving much of North Louisiana began marketing HomeServe warranty service to their customers earlier this year.
“We owe it to the people we serve to look at this,” Campbell said during the LPSC’s monthly meeting, held Wednesday by teleconference because of the Coronavirus. I think SWEPCO and CenterPoint should be in the utility business, not the insurance business.” In his argument Campbell cited a 1991 LPSC order prohibiting utilities from “directly engaging in the sale, installation or service of any type of residential equipment or appliance.”