Progress Energy customers could be on hook as insurer hesitates on $2.5B payout [View all]

[kristopher]

Progress Energy customers could be on hook as insurer hesitates on $2.5B payout

Progress Energy already plans to stick its customers with a $670 million bill for the botched upgrade to the Crystal River nuclear plant. Now those customers have reason to fear that Progress will try to stick them again.

Why? Progress' oft-repeated contention that insurance will pay the rest of the $2.5 billion repair bill looks increasingly shaky.

• The insurer, which goes by the acronym NEIL, already has stopped paying some earlier claims on the construction accident, which shut down the plant in 2009 during replacement of a steam generator.

• NEIL has created a high-ranking committee to investigate whether the accident was, as Progress contends, unforeseeable, unpredictable and unpreventable.

• Now NEIL...


http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/article1210512.ece