The number of UK households falling behind on essential utility bills increases in parallel with record-high redundancies. This amounts to over 2 million houses needing to pay back their suppliers.

Since February the number of households in arrears to energy suppliers has increased by over 600,000 accounts which are in correlation to the records of redundancies this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This figure brings the total amount of households in arrears to over 2 million.

Many people now understand the impact and scale that has come due to the pandemic, restrictions, and lockdowns. Unfortunately, people have been made redundant or have been furloughed with reduced pay which has lead to a financial struggle for many, and to make matters worse they are consuming more essential utilities from home as they are adhering to restrictions. The consumption is only going to increase through the winter months as households are being heated more throughout the days and we are likely to see a further increase of households that have financial problems.

Citizens Advice has published figures for the average amount owed to energy suppliers by households who have fallen behind and it is at £760 for electricity and £605 for gas. This becomes increasingly harder to pay with the ongoing struggles of restrictions and consumption increases over winter.

Fortunately, the regulator Ofgem has put in some emergency rules to help households in financial debt by requiring energy suppliers to offer easier terms to be able to pay off debt. This aims to combat the financial struggle many people would have gone into this winter and to help those most affected by the COVID-19 situation. Although, households are still expected to have increased bills due to utility consumption increase at home this new rule will provide aid to homeowners recovering financially.

Utility SwopShop want to help you save.

The team at Utility SwopShop understands this is a period of financial struggle for a lot of residents and we want to help our community make an economic recovery. We aim to help as many people as possible switch to a better, cheaper, tariff for their renewals so that they have less financial stress over their utility bills. We understand that everyone’s renewals are different and you may not be due for a year or longer but we hope that we can make you big savings throughout the year on route to economic recovery.

You can contact the team any time through our email, contact form, or phone number to talk about what we can do for you and if we could save you on your renewals.