A few weeks ago, in the middle of the night, my wife and I heard a loud boom outside our window accompanied by a flash of light. I’m not entirely clear on what happened out there, but in our home, the power went out. We’ve had power outages before which generally did not last long. This one took a couple hours. For a bit there, we discussed what to do if the outage turned into an unexpectedly long one.
One of the first major concerns was what to do with the food we had in our refrigerator and freezer. We like to keep our fridge well-stocked, and we had some frozen steaks and roasts and various other meat products in the freezer. Things like that, if you put them in a functioning refrigerator to thaw, it would take quite a while, but in this case, it would’ve been the same as letting it sit on the counter. Still, it would have taken a while to thaw and even longer to go bad. According to the USDA, from the time a fridge malfunctions, if kept shut, you may have two to four hours before reaching the spoilage point. But what if you were away from home for, say, two weeks and something like that happened the day after you left? You’d come home to an unpleasant surprise. That’s what.
But there is coverage for that.
Food Loss Coverage in a homeowner’s policy will commonly cover up to $500, and sometimes up to $2,500 worth of spoiled food. Though there is no exact measure at what point food is “spoiled” and how to determine when it’s been reached, if the texture, smell or taste of the food has in any way been affected, you could reasonably expect it to be reimbursed.
It is important to know that the reason for the outage may affect whether you are reimbursed for your loss. Whether it was a result of a “covered peril” listed in your policy. If you’re just an inept handyman or didn’t pay your electric bill, the coverage won’t apply. Some coverage will not apply if the outage was in your whole neighborhood. Whatever happened outside of our building was something we had never heard before. And it kind of sounded like it was a direct “hit” to our building. I tried not to panic but for all I knew, a solar flare had knocked us “off the grid.” Though maybe I’ve seen too many “post-apocalyptic” type movies.
If it was a lightning strike that caused a power surge, it would have been covered, had it come to that. If my initial delusions were correct and we were in fact “off the grid” it would likely not be. But even then, in some cases, electric companies may foot the bill. But that’s usually reserved for cases in which they are really and truly “to blame” for the outage. Depending on the scenario it may be worth reaching out to them.
Food Loss coverage generally will not account for any maintenance needed on your freezer or refrigerator after the incident. Nor will it cover you if your refrigerator is just plain broken. For that, see “equipment breakdown coverage.” Food Spoilage coverage does not apply to breakdown resulting from proper maintenance on the appliance being demonstrably neglected. But if a covered peril causes it to become broken, it will account for the food loss.
If you tend to keep unusually expensive food items in your freezer, keep receipts when you buy them. Otherwise, you can always try to make an estimation on the total value and submit it and see what happens. But either way, like any other insurance claim, it is a good idea to take pictures of what’s in the freezer and/or refrigerator when the power outage starts. Just like any insurance coverage there are deductibles to be met on one end and coverage limits on the other. So it will depend on whether the amount of food you now need to throw away is worth filing a claim, or if replacing it would cost more than you would get from an insurance claim. This isn’t like auto insurance where in such a case your freezer will be deemed “totaled.”
There are going to be power outages we cannot prevent. But remember this. In the situation discussed above, it is best to have a full freezer. Firstly, it leaves less space in the freezer to fill with warmer air, say, when you open the freezer to check if it is working or not. And cold food packed together with other cold food stays cold. It’s just a matter of juggling that along with the risk of a prolonged outage, should there be one, factoring in whether your insurance covers such a calamitous event.
Check with your local Horihan Insurance agent, just to be sure.