Customers are often protected against a utility company's shutting off or terminating their service, even if they cannot afford to pay their bills. These special protections are discussed below.
Serious Illness or Personal Safety
Electric, Gas and Water
Electric, gas, and water companies cannot shut off your service if you, your child, or someone else in your household is seriously ill and you cannot afford to pay your bills because of financial hardship.20The utility companies must treat any medical condition that a doctor considers a serious illness as a serious illness. Serious illness can include psychiatric health problems such as major depression, anxiety disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It can also include chronic physical health problems such as diabetes, asthma, and fibromyalgia. Or, it can be a temporary serious illness such as pneumonia or the flu.
To protect yourself against a shut-off, you should take the following steps as soon as possible:
- Contact your doctor, physician's assistant or nurse practitioner or the local Board of Health and explain your situation. Ask them to immediately contact the utility company by phone and tell the company that you are or someone in your household is seriously ill. Make sure the doctor or Board of Health has your name and address to give to the utility.
Within seven days of this initial phone contact, the doctor or Board of Health must send a letter to the utility company certifying the illness. See the sample letter (Form 6) and sample form letter (Form 7) that can be given to your doctor to fill out. Tell your doctor to include the words "serious illness" in the letter and to describe the illness. If it is a chronic or long-term illness, the doctor should include the word "chronic" in the letter. A letter that states that the illness is "chronic" will result in 180 days of protection before you have to renew, while a letter that does not state this will result in only 90 days of protection.
Note
If the company refuses to honor the initial phone call from the doctor or physician's assistant or nurse practitioner or Board of Health, report this immediately to the Department of Public Utilities (DPU)'s Consumer Division and request that the DPU order the company to continue your service.
- Contact the company and ask them to send you a financial hardship form. You must complete and submit this form as proof that you are unable to pay the amount you owe.
- Your doctor physician's assistant, nurse practitioner or the Board of Health will need to send a new letter at the end of the protected period (180 days for an illness certified as chronic and 90 days for an illness not certified as chronic). You can have a doctor or the Board of Health renew serious illness letters for as long as you need help.
Telephone
Telephone customers are eligible for a similar "serious illness" protection. However, the doctor's letter must be renewed every 30 days even if the illness is specified as chronic, with a maximum of two renewals (a maximum total of 90 days of protection). By the end of the protection period, you must either pay the total amount owed or enter into a payment plan with the company in order to prevent shut-off.
You can also receive up to 30 days of protection when there is a "personal emergency" in which lack of access to a phone endangers the health or safety of a household member.21
A personal emergency can include domestic violence or threats from a past abuser, or any other crisis or threat that requires access to a phone. If you need protection from shut-off because of an emergency, you must write a letter to the company explaining your emergency and why you are unable to pay your bills. You should also call the company and alert a Customer Service representative to your situation. By the end of the 30-day protection period, you must either pay the amount that you owe or enter into a payment plan with the company.
If you have difficulty getting a phone company to protect your account from shut-off based on a serious illness or personal emergency, call the Department of Telecommunications and Cable (DTE) Consumer Division. Even though there are regulations that set certain time limits as to when the telephone company is required to give protection, if you need protection you should try to persuade the company to extend the protection period.
Winter Protection
Electric and Gas
Electric and gas companies cannot shut off your service between November 15 and March 15 if you cannot afford to pay your utility bills and if the service is used to heat your house. (This March 15 end-date is often extended to mid-
or late-April by the DPU). To get the protection, you need only to fill out a financial hardship form and state that the electricity or gas is your heating source or that the electricity is necessary for the operation of your furnace, thermostat, or other controls.22
If you think you may have trouble paying winter heat bills, call your company and ask them to send you a financial hardship form. Fill it out and return it as soon as possible. After you do this, you are protected against a shut-off between November 15 and March 15 (or later date, if the DPU extends the winter moratorium).
Families with Infants
Electric, Gas, and Water
Electric, gas, and water companies cannot shut off your service if you cannot afford to pay your bill and if there is an infant under one year old living in your house.23To get this protection, you must submit a financial hardship form. You must also prove your child's age, through a birth certificate or letter or official document from a physician, hospital, government agency, clergyman, or religious institution.
Elderly Households
Electric, Gas, Water, and Telephone
If you and all the adult members of your household are 65 years or older, it is very difficult for a company to shut off utility service—so difficult that it almost never happens. The rules covering electric, gas, water, and telephone service shut-offs for elderly households require the following:24
- Companies must establish procedures to identify households in which all adult members are 65 or older. To protect yourself, you should notify the utility company if every adult in your household is 65 or older.
- Companies must allow elderly households to identify a third-party contact person who can warn them if a utility company threatens to shut off service. To get this protection, contact your utility company and ask for a Third Party Notification Form. You can name a friend, relative, or home-care provider as a third party. After you give a company this form, the company must then notify your third party of all overdue bills and shut-off notices. This third party is not legally responsible for paying your bill.
- Companies cannot shut off service to elderly households without written permission from the DPU. Because this would involve a hearing before the DPU, companies rarely even request permission to shut off service to elders.
Endnotes
20. G.L. c. 164, §124A; 220 C.M.R. §25.03.
21. Regulations protecting telephone consumers are contained in DPU 18448, which can be obtained from the DPU Consumer Division, and also as an appendix to Utilities Advocacy for Low–income Households(2nd Ed.), available at no charge from the National Consumer Law Center, 617-542-8010. The serious illness provisions discussed in this section are in DPU 18448, Rules 5.15, 5.16. The personal emergency rule is 5.17.
22. G.L. c. 164, §124F; 220 C.M.R. §25.03.
23. G.L. c. 164, §124H; 220 C.M.R. §25.03.
24. The regulations covering elderly accounts are 220 C.M.R. §25.05 (electric, gas, water) and DPU 18448, Part 8 (telephone).
Produced by Charlie Harak Last updated May 2011
