It was just another Sunday night — the footy had finished and Stephen Bailey was turning off the lights when catastrophe struck: an out-of-control car had careered down the hill and slammed into the house where his family was sleeping.
"Boom! Like a bomb went off," Mr Bailey remembers. One look at the aftermath and you'd think one did go off. Smashed fence palings littered the ground everywhere, tire tracks showing where the runaway car had barrelled its way across the yard, through the garage door and into the family living room. Inside; thousands of dollars' worth of damage done to cars, contents and the home. The Bailey family was shaken, but thankfully unharmed. All they needed to do now was figure out: ‘what next?’. They needed help, and luckily their neighbour Mark was just the man to help them.
Mark Styles did what any good neighbour would do. He ran out and made sure that everything — and everyone — was okay. After quickly confirming that the scene was safe — no fallen power lines, no leaking petrol — he jumped into work-mode. The Firies were fast on their way, so Mark started helping the Baileys get back on track. His first piece of advice? Give us your details, then leave it to us. Mark is a proud veteran claims professional and is a Claims Care Manager for Youi Insurance. He has dealt with many emergencies like this during this career — and like the company he works for, he’s always on the job, working 24/7 — ready to help whenever he can. So that’s exactly what he did, he got Stephen to contact Youi and lodge a claim and before you know it tradies from across Brisbane were helping to get the Bailey house shipshape again. "They arranged for a builder to come and complete a ‘make-safe’ — that was all around 11.30 at night. The builder rang within about 10 minutes, arrived on site at about 12 and surveyed what needed to be done, got materials and came back an hour later,” tells Mark.
"The policy does provide for temporary accommodation, but it’s a far better outcome for our customers if we can keep them in their home so that’s what we did."
"Stephen and his family breathed a sigh of relief: “I was in panic mode, but everyone made the process so much easier."
"Within half an hour they had a guy out here looking at how to make it waterproof,” tells Stephen.
“For me it was a big sigh of relief, it was like finally….something’s going to go OK tonight.”
Part II: The Claim
Enter: Karly. She’s the Youi Claims Advisor assigned to help the Baileys get back on track. Working from Youi’s hub on the Sunshine Coast, Karly’s job was to get Baileys life back to where it was before the incident, and fast. She started working on the house and their belongings. "We got our assessor out there,” tells Karly.
"We arranged a mitigation to ensure the house was structurally sound."
"We sent them [the Baileys] a schedule of loss to let them know of all the contents items we were looking at."
With things moving fast, it wasn’t long before the home, contents and car claims were all finalised.
"He's bought himself a nice new car, so he's very happy with that."
"His building claim has been finalised as well, he's getting his new garage door in today. He's getting new cladding up."
"His contents is all settled. He's just spending the rest of his store credits with our providers."
"Last time I spoke to him he was extremely happy about it all."
For Youi, the motto is Everyone's claim is their emergency. No matter if it's a tap leaks or a large-scale weather event - the fact is that big or small, life-changing events are a part of life. That's why every Youi team member treats each claim like their own. By treating each claim like an emergency, they help people all across Australia get up, get back on their feet and get sorted. It's what they do.
Unfortunately, we can't promise to always be just next door like Mark was for the Baileys. But if you're a Youi customer and catastrophe strikes you, we can promise that we'll be on the scene and on the ground, ready to do whatever it takes to get you through your own personal emergency - big or small.
