To maintain a cost-effective insurance program, insurance coverages should be bid every three to five years, based on carefully drawn specifications, which can be done by an insurance consultant. This is also an area that can be conducted on a contingency fee basis. There are many misconceptions about utility bills. The first is that state public service commissions establish utility rates and compel the utility companies to see that customers receive the lowest rate. The fact is that, for all practical purposes, utilities actually establish their own rates.
Utilities are subject to varying degrees of regulation in most states.
In actual practice, however, utility companies are given broad latitude to interpret and apply rates. In the final analysis, state public service commissions are concerned with the overall picture of rates, and then only with respect to the total annual revenue yielded a utility company. Utility companies do not have to give customers the lowest rate obtainable. Power companies themselves maintain that the selection of rates is the customer s responsibility. Since the full facts are often not available to the customer, the selection of the lowest rate is commonly a matter of guesswork for anyone but skilled analysts with unlimited rate information.