Are Energy Company Customers Financially Protected?

frothy-coffee_2

EG
I'm a few hundred quid in credit on my account due to my summer DD payments.

If my energy company went bust would I lose some/or all of it if there wasn't enough capital left to compensate

Cardew

Loads of energy companies have gone bust(ceased trading) and handed over their customer's accounts to another company - normally one of the BIG 6 and the customer hardly noticed the difference - initially.

macman

The biggest recent one being Atlantic I think? They were then incorportaed into SSE as a separate brand.

dogshome

You don't have the protection of FSA rules with Utility Co's, but as past history has shown with failing suppliers they are taken over lock, stock, barrel and debt by another.

Think about it - The industry cannot afford a failure that leaves customers with unpaid credits, because if that happened it would put a BIG ? mark on the entire industry mantra of taking money from customers in summer to build up a credit to be offset agianst winter bills.