Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Like a lot of others... our insurance company ran away.

After the floods here in QLD, a lot of poor people found out that their insurance wasn't worth the paper it was written on. It's all because of the way the insurance companies determine the meaning of flood. Now my theory is that the water fell from the sky.. it's that simple. While our boutique itself wasn't flooded, we did have the issue of no access to the building and when we did get in we had no power or phones. Because of this we literally couldn't trade for around 2 weeks. Of course we had "Business Interruption" Insurance which we purchased through AON Insurance Brokers. The insurance itself was underwritten by Chateris Insurance.

After we were back to normal, we lodged a claim. On no less than 4 times, the loss assessors contacted us and asked for the same material to lodge our claim. Each time it was a different person... and the whole process started again. Sort of like trying to fix your phone with Testra.. only a lot worse. So today.. they advise us they have knocked back pour claim. Why? Because the problems we had were caused by flooding and not storm damage. Can you believe it??? The storms caused the flooding! To say that both Mark and I are shattered is an understatement and our hearts go out to all those who are also doing battle with these uncaring corporate bookies.

So it gives me no great pleasure to advise any fellow business owners out there to avoid both AON Insurance Brokers and Charteris Insurance at all costs. When it came to the crunch.. they were inefficient and couldn't run away fast enough. We are sure there are other bad news insurers out there. After all, birds of a feather flock together. But for our money.. avoid AON and Chateris at all costs if our experience is anything to go by.

Debra & Markl

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