Energy supplier loyalty: Is it costing you money?

• Featured Articles
• Published: 08 Mar 2010 in Household and Gas Electricity

By Stephen Jones

Some of the older among us may look wistfully back to a time when shops and service providers rewarded customers for their loyalty. ‘Becoz yer a regulah’, you might hear, as you saw a complimentary bunch of bananas slid in with your groceries.

Sadly, in today’s society, this sort of cockle-warming exchange is pretty rare; in fact, in many fields of business it’s all gone quite the other way.

Nowhere is this truer than in the topsy-turvy world of energy. So far this year there have already been 29 energy price changes; however, only 3 of these have benefitted customers who remained with their supplier.

What’s more, recent research conducted by our very own utilities team here at Confused.com found that electricity providers are actually charging consumers more in their home trading regions than elsewhere – effectively punishing those who haven’t switched.

Around 33 per cent of electricity users in the UK remain faithful to their home supplier, even though some firms charge their local customers as much as 12 per cent more than those in other parts of the country.

Who are the worst offenders?

All energy companies are guilty of this practice to varying degrees, and to let you make you make up your own minds, we’ve put together the following table.

Region	Host Supplier	Host Supplier Price	Non-host suppliers average price	Difference
Eastern	Eon	£413	£396	£18	4%
EastMidlands	Eon	£402	£393	£9	2%
Norweb	Eon	£408	£376	£32	9%
London	EDF	£413	£412	£1	0%
Seeboard	EDF	£408	£395	£13	3%
SWEB	EDF	£431	£417	£14	3%
Manweb	ScottishPower	£434	£411	£23	6%
Scottish Power	ScottishPower	£433	£409	£24	6%
Midlands	npower	£402	£387	£15	4%
Northern	npower	£411	£390	£21	5%
Yorkshire	npower	£418	£378	£40	11%
Scottish Hydro	SSE	£432	£410	£22	5%
Southern	SSE	£417	£410	£7	2%
Swalec	SSE	£434	£424	£9	2%

As you can see, nPower are the worst offenders, with customers in Yorkshire paying on average 11 per cent more with the region’s host provider than they would elsewhere.

People in the Norweb (North West Electricity Board) region are also feeling the effects of failing to switch – paying 9 per cent more with Eon than they would with alternative suppliers.

Ditch the Devotion

If all this makes you angry, then you could consider switching energy providers. In fact, with an online energy war hotting up, now could well be the time to switch to an online tariff too if recent Confused.com research is anything to go by. We found that in the last year, the average price of our best buy tariffs has fallen 18 per cent – with the majority of these savings coming from online tariffs only.

But if you don’t want to leave your current supplier, there are still ways to reduce the cost of your energy: simply pay by a more efficient method such as Direct Debit.

So take action, strike back and switch. Confused.com will always recommend hunting around for the best deal – and you’d be surprised how much it can save you. To take a look at our latest energy Best Buy guide, click here and see if loyalty is costing you money.