British Gas faces compensation calls after leaving customers in the cold

British Gas has been accused of leaving households without heating during one of the coldest weeks in a decade, prompting calls for customers of their insurance service to be compensated.

Customers with HomeCare cover from British Gas say they have struggled to reach the helpline and have been given appointments sometimes as late as January.

John Hayes, the former energy minister, said customers’ contracts should be retroactively revised to specify waiting times for breakdown cover, with households compensated if British Gas is in breach.

It comes nearly a year after The Telegraph revealed that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) was working with the company to improve its customer service, after British Gas was forced to apologise to hundreds of thousands of customers over its failures to fix and service broken boilers.

'Stranded during freezing weather'

Anna Bobak, a lecturer in Scotland, was forced to call a local engineer to fix her boiler after it broke on Tuesday, despite spending £23 a month for British Gas HomeCare cover.

British Gas promises customers they can “protect your pocket from expensive winter repairs and stay cosy” with its insurance, which starts from £18.50 a month.

Ms Bobak, who has fibromyalgia, which worsens in the cold, was originally told she would have to wait three days for a British Gas engineer to come out, as temperatures plummeted to -6C (21.2F).

The University of Reading declared the week up until Wednesday to have been the coldest since 2013.

Two subsequent promised visits were cancelled, and Ms Bobak eventually outsourced her repairs to a local engineer.

“How is it possible that a small local company can come out in 45 minutes and British Gas, with huge infrastructure and profits, leaves people like me and others stranded during freezing weather?” she asked.

“The £23 a month certainly doesn’t sound like a good use of money in a breakdown.”

After being contacted by The Telegraph, British Gas escalated Ms Bobak’s case and said it would refund the cost of her third-party repairs.

“At this point I want nothing to do with them bar a refund of what I already paid and cancellation of any further payment and an apology,” said Ms Bobak.

'People should be compensated'

British Gas says it will “carry out any repairs or visits you’re entitled to within a reasonable time, unless something beyond our control makes that impossible – in which case we’ll let you know as soon as possible and give you another time when we can visit”.

Mr Hayes said he would write to the Government to call for them to ensure British Gas and the FCA were doing all they could to protect customers.

"British Gas should be told to recalibrate contracts to ensure that if they don't meet the service levels promised, people should be compensated,” he said.

"There should be some retrospective consideration (of compensation) given to people at least for this year.

“It's vitally important that British Gas do what they said they would do, honour that promise and help people out who otherwise would be left without hot water and heating and in considerable difficulty."

A spokesman for the FCA said: “We recently wrote to insurers to ensure they are clear about our requirements to handle claims promptly and fairly and our expectation that they pay particular regard to customers with vulnerable characteristics.

“We are aware of the past issues mentioned and have set out our expectations to the firm. We are unable to comment further on the content of discussions with the firm.”

A British Gas spokesman said: “Demand is always high in the winter and we have 350 more engineers since last year to respond to callouts.

“It is of course extremely busy this week with the cold snap - our engineers are working round the clock to help and we are of course prioritising vulnerable customers and emergencies.

“So far in December, we’ve sent an engineer to 99.4 per cent of vulnerable customers who have reported an emergency breakdown either on the same day or next day.”