Our retail store in Subiaco was badly damaged by sprinklers when there was a fire in an adjacent property in our shopping centre. The store was roughly 60 days old and the damage was so significant that we were forced to move out of our store for 4 months and into a kiosk to allow us to keep trading in some capacity while the store was rebuilt. Our insurer engaged loss adjusters to manage the claim for them. We were suitably covered for the cost of the rebuild and the business interruption however I had real trouble dealing with the business interruption portion of our claim and felt that the amount we were being offered was not commensurate with the impact to our business.

I was aware how much we had lost over the affected period however I didn’t have the time or the experience to portray this, particularly given I was dealing with forensic accountants.

I reached out to my broker to find out what access we had under our policy to get assistance preparing the claim. Our policy allowed for significant assistance with claim preparation and we were lucky to be put in touch with Graham Cox from YourClaim. Graham had several meetings with me to understand our business model, go through our expenses, payroll and income with a fine tooth comb to ensure that we were able to secure every dollar that we were entitled to. Graham also did all of the legwork with preparing spreadsheets, analysis and justification for our claim. Graham was easy to talk to, didn’t use jargon and followed up regularly with updates throughout the process. Most importantly the costs for YourClaim’s services were covered meaning there was no out of pocket expenses to our business.

The end result was a claim of six figures, roughly 3 times more than the insurer had originally offered me, and was in-line with my own estimates of the impact over the affected period.

I would not hesitate to recommend Graham and YourClaim if you ever find yourself in a situation similar to the above.

        Stephen O’Keefe    General Manager/Owner

Representing the Policy Holder