The Duke Energy Registrants have insurance and reinsurance coverage either directly or through indemnification from Duke Energy’s captive insurance company, Bison, and its affiliates, consistent with companies engaged in similar commercial operations with similar type properties. The Duke Energy Registrants’ coverage includes (i) commercial general liability coverage for liabilities arising to third parties for bodily injury and property damage; (ii) workers’ compensation; (iii) automobile liability coverage; and (iv) property coverage for all real and personal property damage. Real and personal property damage coverage excludes electric transmission and distribution lines, but includes damages arising from boiler and machinery breakdowns, earthquakes, flood damage and extra expense, but not outage or replacement power coverage. All coverage is subject to certain deductibles or retentions, sublimits, exclusions, terms and conditions common for companies with similar types of operations. The Duke Energy Registrants self-insure their electric transmission and distribution lines against loss due to storm damage and other natural disasters. As discussed further in Note 4, Duke Energy Florida maintains a storm damage reserve and has a regulatory mechanism to recover the cost of named storms on an expedited basis.

In the event of a loss, terms and amounts of insurance and reinsurance available might not be adequate to cover claims and other expenses incurred. Uninsured losses and other expenses, to the extent not recovered by other sources, could have a material effect on the Duke Energy Registrants’ results of operations, cash flows or financial position. Each company is responsible to the extent losses may be excluded or exceed limits of the coverage available.

In the event of a loss, terms and amounts of insurance available might not be adequate to cover property damage and other expenses incurred. Uninsured losses and other expenses, to the extent not recovered by other sources, could have a material effect on Duke Energy Carolinas’, Duke Energy Progress’ and Duke Energy Florida’s results of operations, cash flows or financial position. Each company is responsible to the extent losses may be excluded or exceed limits of the coverage available.

The Price-Anderson Act requires owners of nuclear reactors to provide for public nuclear liability protection per nuclear incident up to a maximum total financial protection liability. The maximum total financial protection liability, which is approximately $13.7 billion, is subject to change every five years for inflation and for the number of licensed reactors. Total nuclear liability coverage consists of a combination of private primary nuclear liability insurance coverage and a mandatory industry risk-sharing program to provide for excess nuclear liability coverage above the maximum reasonably available private primary coverage. The U.S. Congress could impose revenue-raising measures on the nuclear industry to pay claims.

This program provides $13.2 billion of coverage per incident through the Price-Anderson Act’s mandatory industrywide excess secondary financial protection program of risk pooling. This amount is the product of potential cumulative retrospective premium assessments of $138 million times the current 96 licensed commercial nuclear reactors in the U.S. Under this program, operating unit licensees could be assessed retrospective premiums to compensate for public nuclear liability damages in the event of a nuclear incident at any licensed facility in the U.S. Retrospective premiums may be assessed at a rate not to exceed $20.5 million per year per licensed reactor for each incident. The assessment may be subject to state premium taxes.

Duke Energy Carolinas, Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Florida are members of Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited (NEIL), an industry mutual insurance company, which provides property damage, nuclear accident decontamination and premature decommissioning insurance for each station for losses resulting from damage to its nuclear plants, either due to accidents or acts of terrorism. Additionally, NEIL provides accidental outage coverage for losses in the event of a major accidental outage at an insured nuclear station.

Losses resulting from acts of terrorism are covered as common occurrences, such that if terrorist acts occur against one or more commercial nuclear power plants insured by NEIL within a 12-month period, they would be treated as one event and the owners of the plants where the act occurred would share one full limit of liability. The full limit of liability is currently $3.2 billion. NEIL sublimits the total aggregate for all of their policies for non-nuclear terrorist events to approximately $1.8 billion.

Each nuclear facility has accident property damage, nuclear accident decontamination and premature decommissioning liability insurance from NEIL with limits of $1.5 billion, except for Crystal River Unit 3. Crystal River Unit 3’s limit is $50 million and is on an actual cash value basis. All nuclear facilities except for Catawba and Crystal River Unit 3 also share an additional $1.25 billion nuclear accident insurance limit above their dedicated underlying limit. This shared additional excess limit is not subject to reinstatement in the event of a loss. Catawba has a dedicated $1.25 billion of additional nuclear accident insurance limit above its dedicated underlying limit. Catawba and Oconee also have an additional $750 million of non-nuclear accident property damage limit. All coverages are subject to sublimits and significant deductibles.

NEIL’s Accidental Outage policy provides some coverage, similar to business interruption, for losses in the event of a major accident property damage outage of a nuclear unit. Coverage is provided on a weekly limit basis after a significant waiting period deductible and at 100% of the applicable weekly limits for 52 weeks and 80% of the applicable weekly limits for up to the next 110 weeks. Coverage is provided until these applicable weekly periods are met, where the accidental outage policy limit will not exceed $490 million for Catawba, McGuire, Harris, Brunswick, Oconee and Robinson. NEIL sublimits the accidental outage recovery up to the first 104 weeks of coverage not to exceed $328 million from non-nuclear accidental property damage. Coverage amounts decrease in the event more than one unit at a station is out of service due to a common accident. All coverages are subject to sublimits and significant deductibles.

In the event of NEIL losses, NEIL’s board of directors may assess member companies' retroactive premiums of amounts up to 10 times their annual premiums for up to six years after a loss. NEIL has never exercised this assessment. The maximum aggregate annual retrospective premium obligations for Duke Energy Carolinas, Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Florida are $151 million, $93 million and $1 million, respectively. Duke Energy Carolinas' maximum assessment amount includes 100% of potential obligations to NEIL for jointly owned reactors. Duke Energy Carolinas would seek reimbursement from the joint owners for their portion of these assessment amounts.

In addition to AROs recorded as a result of various environmental regulations, discussed in Note 10, the Duke Energy Registrants are responsible for environmental remediation at various sites. These include certain properties that are part of ongoing operations and sites formerly owned or used by Duke Energy entities. These sites are in various stages of investigation, remediation and monitoring. Managed in conjunction with relevant federal, state and local agencies, remediation activities vary based upon site conditions and location, remediation requirements, complexity and sharing of responsibility. If remediation activities involve joint and several liability provisions, strict liability, or cost recovery or contribution actions, the Duke Energy Registrants could potentially be held responsible for environmental impacts caused by other potentially responsible parties and may also benefit from insurance policies or contractual indemnities that cover some or all cleanup costs. Liabilities are recorded when losses become probable and are reasonably estimable. The total costs that may be incurred cannot be estimated because the extent of environmental impact, allocation among potentially responsible parties, remediation alternatives and/or regulatory decisions have not yet been determined at all sites. Additional costs associated with remediation activities are likely to be incurred in the future and could be significant. Costs are typically expensed as Operation, maintenance and other in the Consolidated Statements of Operations unless regulatory recovery of the costs is deemed probable.

On September 23, 2020, plaintiff Michael Johnson, a former Duke Energy employee and participant in the Duke Energy Retirement Savings Plan (Plan) brought suit on his own behalf and on behalf of other participants and beneficiaries similarly situated against Duke Energy Corporation, the Duke Energy Benefits Committee, and other unnamed individual defendants. The complaint, which was subsequently amended to add a current participant as a plaintiff on November 23, 2020, alleges that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties with respect to certain fees associated with the Plan in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and seeks certification of a class of all individuals who were participants or beneficiaries of the Plan at any time on or after September 23, 2014. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ amended complaint on December 18, 2020. On January 31, 2022, the court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss. On February 28, 2022, Duke Energy responded to the amended complaint. Discovery commenced and the parties exchanged preliminary disclosures. After review of these disclosures, the plaintiffs agreed to voluntarily dismiss the suit and the parties subsequently filed a joint stipulation of voluntary dismissal with prejudice on April 29, 2022, ending this litigation.

Duke Energy Corporation and several Duke Energy renewables project companies in the ERCOT market were named in more than thirty lawsuits arising out of Texas Storm Uri, which occurred in February 2021. Duke Energy Corporation was dismissed from the suits, leaving two suits in which individual wind and solar projects are named. These lawsuits seek recovery for property damages, personal injury and wrongful death allegedly caused by the power outages that plaintiffs claim were the collective failure of generators, transmission and distribution utilities ("TDUs"), retail energy providers, natural gas providers, co-ops and municipalities that generate power and ERCOT, all of which were originally sued by all plaintiffs. The cases were consolidated into a Texas state court multidistrict litigation (MDL) proceeding for discovery and pre-trial motions. Five cases were designated for motions to dismiss and all other cases were stayed. On January 28, 2023, the Court denied the generators' and TDUs' motions to dismiss the negligence claims but dismissed the tortious interference and conspiracy claims. The motions to dismiss ERCOT and the natural gas defendants were also granted. The generator and TDU defendants filed a petition for mandamus in each of the five cases seeking to overturn the denials on February 10, 2023. If the Texas Court of Appeals accepts the appeals, it will set a briefing schedule. The remaining cases that are part of the MDL are currently stayed, except that plaintiffs have been given leave to amend their pleadings. Plaintiffs began amending existing lawsuits and filing new lawsuits on behalf of hundreds of plaintiffs against hundreds of defendants, including in some cases, by again naming Duke Energy Corporation and naming, for the first time, Duke Energy Renewables, LLC. Plaintiffs have also re-named ERCOT as a defendant. As new cases are served, they are being brought into the MDL and are subject to the stay in the MDL proceeding. Duke Energy cannot predict the outcomes of these matters. See Note 2 for more information related to the sale of the Commercial Renewables Disposal Groups.

On June 16, 2021, a group of nine individuals went over a low head dam adjacent to the Dan River Steam Station in Eden, North Carolina, while water tubing. Emergency personnel rescued four people and five others were confirmed deceased. On August 11, 2021, Duke Energy Carolinas was served with the complaint filed in Durham County Superior Court on behalf of four survivors, which was later amended to include all the decedents along with the survivors. The lawsuit alleges that Duke Energy Carolinas knew that the river was used for recreational purposes and that Duke Energy did not adequately warn about the dam and that Duke Energy Carolinas created a dangerous and hidden hazard on the Dan River in building and maintaining the low head dam. Discovery has commenced and is scheduled to be completed on or before August 23, 2023. The parties are preparing for mediation, which is scheduled for March 22, 2023. Dispositive motions are due to be filed by September 6, 2023, and the case is scheduled to be trial-ready by October 2, 2023. Duke Energy Carolinas cannot predict the outcome of this matter.

In November 2017, Duke Energy Carolinas entered into a standard FERC large generator interconnection agreement (LGIA) with NTE Carolinas II, LLC (NTE), a company that proposed to build a combined-cycle natural gas plant in Rockingham County, North Carolina. On September 6, 2019, Duke Energy Carolinas filed a lawsuit in Mecklenburg County Superior Court against NTE for breach of contract, alleging that NTE's failure to pay benchmark payments for Duke Energy Carolinas' transmission system upgrades required under the interconnection agreement constituted a termination of the interconnection agreement. Duke Energy Carolinas sought a monetary judgment against NTE because NTE failed to make multiple milestone payments. The lawsuit was moved to federal court in North Carolina. NTE filed a motion to dismiss Duke Energy Carolinas’ complaint and brought counterclaims alleging anti-competitive conduct and violations of state and federal statutes. Duke Energy Carolinas filed a motion to dismiss NTE's counterclaims. Both NTE's and Duke Energy Carolinas' motions to dismiss were subsequently denied by the court.

On May 21, 2020, in response to an NTE petition challenging Duke Energy Carolinas' termination of the LGIA, FERC issued a ruling that 1) it has exclusive jurisdiction to determine whether a transmission provider may terminate a LGIA; 2) FERC approval is required to terminate a conforming LGIA if objected to by the interconnection customer; and 3) Duke Energy may not announce the termination of a conforming LGIA unless FERC has approved the termination. FERC's Office of Enforcement also initiated an investigation of Duke Energy Carolinas into matters pertaining to the LGIA. Duke Energy Carolinas is cooperating with the Office of Enforcement but cannot predict the outcome of this investigation.

Following completion of discovery, Duke Energy Carolinas filed a motion for summary judgment seeking a ruling in its favor as to some of its affirmative claims against NTE and to all of NTE’s counterclaims. On June 24, 2022, the court issued an order partially granting Duke Energy Carolinas' motion by dismissing NTE's counterclaims that Duke Energy Carolinas engaged in anti-competitive behavior in violation of state and federal statutes. On October 12, 2022, the parties executed a settlement agreement with respect to the remaining breach of contract claims in the litigation and a Stipulation of Dismissal was filed with the court on October 13, 2022. On November 11, 2022, NTE filed its Notice of Appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit as to the District Court's summary judgment ruling in Duke Energy Carolinas' favor on NTE's antitrust and unfair competition claims. Briefing on NTE's appeal will be completed on May 3, 2023. Duke Energy Carolinas cannot predict the outcome of this matter.

Duke Energy Carolinas has recognized asbestos-related reserves of $457 million and $501 million at December 31, 2022, and 2021, respectively. These reserves are classified in Other within Other Noncurrent Liabilities and Other within Current Liabilities on the Consolidated Balance Sheets. The change in the reserves is a result of a third-party study completed in 2021 as well as settlements made throughout the year. These reserves are based upon Duke Energy Carolinas' best estimate for current and future asbestos claims through 2042 and are recorded on an undiscounted basis. In light of the uncertainties inherent in a longer-term forecast, management does not believe they can reasonably estimate the indemnity and medical costs that might be incurred after 2042 related to such potential claims. It is possible Duke Energy Carolinas may incur asbestos liabilities in excess of the recorded reserves.

Duke Energy Carolinas has third-party insurance to cover certain losses related to asbestos-related injuries and damages above an aggregate self-insured retention. Receivables for insurance recoveries were $595 million and $644 million at December 31, 2022, and 2021, respectively. These amounts are classified in Other within Other Noncurrent Assets and Receivables within Current Assets on the Consolidated Balance Sheets. Any future payments up to the policy limit will be reimbursed by the third-party insurance carrier. Duke Energy Carolinas is not aware of any uncertainties regarding the legal sufficiency of insurance claims. Duke Energy Carolinas believes the insurance recovery asset is probable of recovery as the insurance carrier continues to have a strong financial strength rating.

The reserve for credit losses for insurance receivables for the asbestos-related injuries and damages is $12 million for Duke Energy and Duke Energy Carolinas as of December 31, 2022, and December 31, 2021. The insurance receivable is evaluated based on the risk of default and the historical losses, current conditions and expected conditions around collectability. Management evaluates the risk of default annually based on payment history, credit rating and changes in the risk of default from credit agencies.

On June 18, 2018, Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Florida sued the U.S. in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims for damages incurred for the period 2014 through 2018. The lawsuit claimed the DOE breached a contract in failing to accept spent nuclear fuel under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and asserted damages for the cost of on-site storage in the amount of $100 million and $200 million for Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Florida, respectively.

On January 27, 2020, Hoosier Environmental Council (HEC) filed a Petition for Administrative Review with the Indiana Office of Environmental Adjudication challenging the Indiana Department of Environmental Management’s (IDEM's) December 10, 2019 partial approval of Duke Energy Indiana’s ash pond closure plan at Duke Energy's Gallagher power station. After hearing oral arguments in early April 2021 on Duke Energy Indiana's and HEC's competing Motions for Summary Judgment, on May 4, 2021, the administrative court rejected all of HEC’s claims and issued a ruling in favor of Duke Energy Indiana. On June 3, 2021, HEC filed an appeal in Superior Court to seek judicial review of the order. Briefing on the appeal was completed on December 13, 2021.

On January 11, 2022, Duke Energy Indiana received a compliance obligation letter from the EPA notifying the company that the two basins at issue in the litigation are subject to requirements of the CCR Rule. The letter does not provide a deadline for compliance. Duke Energy Indiana is proceeding with surface impoundment closure at its Indiana sites consistent with EPA’s guidance, the federal CCR rule, and Indiana law, as applicable.

On April 21, 2022, HEC filed a motion requesting that the court hold a hearing within 45 days and also take judicial notice of the EPA's January 11, 2022 letter. On April 22, 2022, Duke Energy Indiana sent IDEM a letter withdrawing the closure plans for the Gallagher North Ash Pond and Primary Pond Ash Fill. After acknowledgment by IDEM of withdrawal of these closure plans, Duke Energy Indiana filed a Motion to Dismiss the litigation as moot on April 28, 2022, which IDEM supported, and the court granted the Motion to Dismiss on July 8, 2022.

In June 2022, Duke Energy Indiana filed a civil action in Indiana Superior Court against various insurance companies seeking declaratory relief with respect to insurance coverage for coal combustion residuals-related expenses and liabilities covered by third-party liability insurance policies. The insurance policies cover the 1969-1972 and 1984-1985 periods and provide third-party liability insurance for claims and suits alleging property damage, bodily injury and personal injury (or a combination thereof). A trial date has not yet been set. Duke Energy Indiana cannot predict the outcome of this matter.

The Duke Energy Registrants are involved in other legal, tax and regulatory proceedings arising in the ordinary course of business, some of which involve significant amounts. The Duke Energy Registrants believe the final disposition of these proceedings will not have a material effect on their results of operations, cash flows or financial position for the years presented. Reserves are classified on the Consolidated Balance Sheets in Other within Other Noncurrent Liabilities and Other within Current Liabilities.

As part of their normal business, the Duke Energy Registrants are party to various financial guarantees, performance guarantees and other contractual commitments to extend guarantees of credit and other assistance to various subsidiaries, investees and other third parties. These guarantees involve elements of performance and credit risk, which are not fully recognized on the Consolidated Balance Sheets and have uncapped maximum potential payments. However, the Duke Energy Registrants do not believe these guarantees will have a material effect on their results of operations, cash flows or financial position. See Note 8 for more information.

Duke Energy Ohio and Piedmont routinely enter into long-term natural gas supply commodity and capacity commitments and other agreements that commit future cash flows to acquire services needed in their businesses. These commitments include pipeline and storage capacity contracts and natural gas supply contracts to provide service to customers. Costs arising from the natural gas supply commodity and capacity commitments, while significant, are pass-through costs to customers and are generally fully recoverable through the fuel adjustment or PGA procedures and prudence reviews in North Carolina and South Carolina and under the Tennessee Incentive Plan in Tennessee. In the Midwest, these costs are recovered via the Gas Cost Recovery Rate in Ohio or the Gas Cost Adjustment Clause in Kentucky. The time periods for fixed payments under pipeline and storage capacity contracts are up to 20 years. The time periods for fixed payments under natural gas supply contracts are up to four years. The time period for the natural gas supply purchase commitments is up to nine years.

Certain storage and pipeline capacity contracts require the payment of demand charges that are based on rates approved by the FERC in order to maintain rights to access the natural gas storage or pipeline capacity on a firm basis during the contract term. The demand charges that are incurred in each period are recognized in the Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Income as part of natural gas purchases and are included in Cost of natural gas.