CenterPoint Energy
Utilities
68
out of 100. Number 53 of 512, counting from the worst.
Where CenterPoint Energy does well
- Privacy rights are genuinely detailed: state residents get access, correction, deletion, and portability rights, an opt-out of sale/targeted advertising via a 'Your Privacy Choices' footer link and Global Privacy Control support, plus an appeals process for denied requests — better than many peers.
- 'SMS opt-in consent is never shared with third parties for any third-party promotional purposes' — an explicit no-share carve-out.
- Disconnection policy is unusually humane and transparent: 'Service disconnection is a last resort,' with no disconnection until a past-due balance reaches at least $175, 10-day (warm months) / 15-day (cold weather) advance notice, and payment arrangements considering the customer's financial circumstances.
- The Surge Plan contract can be cancelled within 30 days of a material change notice, and biometric data (facial scans) is stored on the user's device, not CenterPoint's servers.
If you have a dispute over the website or online services, you must go to private binding arbitration in Texas — no court, no jury, no joining with other customers in a class action. (CenterPoint, however, reserves the right to take YOU to court in Texas if it claims you violated its intellectual property rights.)
The fine print
6 clauses and findings from the draft archive, dated 1 October 2026. The plain English comes first; the small print is the company's own words. None of these has been checked yet.
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If you have a dispute over the website or online services, you must go to private binding arbitration in Texas — no court, no jury, no joining with other customers in a class action. (CenterPoint, however, reserves the right to take YOU to court in Texas if it claims you violated its intellectual property rights.)
To the extent allowable by law, any dispute relating in any way to your access to and use of the Service shall be submitted to confidential and binding arbitration in the State of Texas under the rules of the American Arbitration Association... YOU AND CENTERPOINT AGREE THAT EACH MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY IN YOUR OR ITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING.
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The add-on surge protection plan silently renews every year — and at the full regular (non-promotional) price, not the price you signed up for. To stop it you must cancel IN WRITING at least 30 days BEFORE the anniversary, a window most customers will miss.
You are purchasing a contract for the Electrical Surge Plan for one full year. To ensure continued protection, your Electrical Surge Plan will be automatically renewed on your Electrical Surge Plan contract anniversary date at the regular non-promotional prices and terms then in effect, unless cancelled by you or CenterPoint Energy in writing to the other within 30 days prior to your contract anniversary date.
Home Service Plus Electrical Surge Plan Terms and Conditions
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CenterPoint shares your personal info with 'joint marketing partners' and retail energy providers — activity it openly admits may legally count as SELLING your data. It also runs interest-based ads across third-party sites ('Our Services are not designed to respond to do not track signals') and buys data about you from credit-check providers, data aggregators, and marketing partners.
Our Partners: We may share your personal information with joint marketing partners, other commercial partners (such as Retail Electric Providers, mutual assistance providers, and energy-efficiency partners)... Certain of these sharing activities may be considered a 'sale' under applicable law.
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CenterPoint can rewrite the rules whenever it wants with no advance notice; merely continuing to use the website means you've agreed to the new terms. The Privacy Policy gets the same treatment: 'We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time and without prior notice to you.'
CenterPoint reserves the right to modify or add to these Terms of Use at any time without prior notice ('Updated Terms'). You agree that we may notify you of the Updated Terms by posting them on the Service so that they are accessible via a link on the home page, and that your use of the Service after we have posted the Updated Terms... constitutes your agreement to the Updated Terms.
Terms of Use, Section 21 'Entire Agreement; Updates to Terms of Use'
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There is no fixed deletion timeline — data is kept for the whole relationship plus 'statute of limitation periods' plus anything deemed a 'legitimate business purpose.' And on the website side, 'public posts made by you on the Service may remain on the Service in perpetuity' even after your account is closed.
To the extent permitted by applicable law, we typically retain personal information we obtain about you for as long as it is needed (1) for the purposes for which we obtained it and in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Notice, which generally means that we will keep your personal information for the duration of our relationship or as long as you are enrolled in our loyalty program; (2) to take into account applicable statute of limitation periods and comply with applicable laws; or (3) for legitimate business purposes to the extent permitted by applicable law.
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No matter what goes wrong — data breach, billing errors, outages — CenterPoint's maximum liability to you is ten dollars. The same section forces you to indemnify THEM for anything arising from your use, lets them terminate your account 'in its sole discretion, without notice and liability,' and gives them a 'perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide' license to anything you post. Bonus: 'YOU AGREE THAT YOU WILL NOT BE PERMITTED TO OBTAIN AN INJUNCTION OR OTHER EQUITABLE RELIEF OF ANY KIND' (Section 19).
IN NO EVENT WILL THE CENTERPOINT ENTITIES TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL DAMAGES, LOSSES OR CAUSES OF ACTION EXCEED TEN UNITED STATES DOLLARS ($10.00).
Terms of Use, Section 13 'Disclaimer of Representations and Warranties; Limitation of Liabilities'
How these were found
Documents read directly from official centerpointenergy.com pages via browser_open on Oct 1, 2026; no mirrors needed. Privacy Policy 'Last updated: January 30, 2026' (current). Terms of Use effective September 15, 2016 — still the version posted and linked, though 10 years old. Electrical Surge Plan T&C read from the live HSP page. Utility service rules (disconnection, deposits, fees) are set by state regulators (PUC/Railroad Commission) via filed tariffs, which constrains some billing terms — scored leniency applied there.
These notes come from the original draft and are not independent verification.