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Once you’ve switched energy suppliers, relax. Your cashback will be on its way. It can take up to 12 months for it to be paid, but most of the time, only 180 days.
There’s a price cap that energy regulator Ofgem introduced to stop people overpaying for energy, and suppliers charging too much. This cap changes every year, and although providers change their costs to suit the new cap, people still miss out on extra money they could save by not switching.
Switching suppliers and not letting your current agreement auto-renew can help save you up to hundreds a year. The fun doesn’t stop there. If you make the switch through Compare, you can get up to £40 cashback on top.
If you do choose to switch energy provider (and we highly recommend that you do), be sure to check whether you’re in credit with your old supplier once you’ve decided to change. Or in other words, you’ve paid too much for the amount of energy you’ve received.
If this is the case, then your provider owes you the funds that you haven’t used. They should automatically pay you back, but many suppliers don’t. This is especially true if you switched suppliers before 2014, when new government regulations came in to encourage suppliers to pay back any credit owed.
Checking your credit and making a refund claim is easy. Check out My Energy Credit, a website that helps people claim back money they’ve left with an old supplier.
Some of the main reasons why people overpay for their energy tariffs are old inefficient boilers and a lack of insulation.
Good news: the government has recently encouraged energy suppliers to introduce free boiler and insulation grants. This means you can get a loan to replace your boiler or redo your insulation. The best part? You don’t have to pay it back. So you could end up with a completely free, shiny new boiler or better insulation.
This will help cut the cost of your energy bills in the long run. As better boilers and insulation mean less wasted energy, which means less wasted money.
There are a few ways of paying your energy bill.
The most common, and probably the easiest way to pay your energy bill. With this, you’ll be charged for your energy on the same day every month. The cost of the bill might change slightly month to month, depending on how much energy you’re using and the wholesale price of energy at the time.
Some months you may overpay for your energy, while others you’ll underpay. If you overpay you’ll be in credit, which means you can claim back the money you’re owed. If you underpay, you’ll be in debt, and your supplier could increase other months’ bills to pay for it.
Basically the same as monthly, but instead of every month, you’ll pay every three months. Naturally, the bill every three months will be higher than a bill every month. So you need to make sure you can afford a larger sum of money being taken out of your account fewer times a year.
The way this works is that you get a quarterly bill and a payment card. You can use your payment card to pay your quarterly bill over its three-month period. The idea is that it gives you more control over how and when you pay your bill, and it doesn’t get taken out of your account in one fell swoop.
This way of payment is best if you want to spread out your costs throughout the quarter. But if you fail to pay for all of your energy in one quarter, you have to pay more the next.
The average energy bill for gas and electricity in the UK is £104.50 a month, or £1,254 a year, according to Ofgem data from April 2019.
Of course, someone’s energy bill is determined by a whole range of factors, such as the size of their home and the number of people living there. It also chops and changes month to month, due to the fluctuating wholesale price of energy.
Your cashback will be tracked within 72 hours of you taking out a gas, electric or dual fuel tariff. It will then be confirmed with your energy provider and available for withdrawal within four months. You can always check the progress of your cashback in your Activity.