CHICAGO (WBBM) – If you’re a NiCor customer and are signed up for the utility’s Gas Line Comfort Guard program, it might be no comfort at all to find out what consumer advocates say about the program.

LISTEN: Newsradio 780′s Bernie Tafoya Reports

The Citizens Utility Board says you may be throwing away your money by participating in NiCor’s Comfort Guard program.  The program is supposed to cover the cost of problems involving indoor exposed pipes. It’s basically an insurance policy.

“This is an insurance product where you end up paying more than the average cost of repairs.  So, we don’t think this is a particularly good deal,” says CUB’s David Kolata.

Kolata says Comfort Guard costs about $60 a year when the average cost for a pipe repair done by NiCor is about $47.

“The list of things not covered by Comfort Guard is actually longer than the list of things that it does cover,” says Kolata.

NiCor says Comfort Guard is a valued warranty service chosen by hundreds of thousands of NiCor customers.

Information on the program from NiCor HERE