Dealing with Disaster: Brokers share their experience with recent floods

The recent floods in northern New South Wales and Queensland had a devastating effect on many individuals and families, homes, properties and businesses.

Some people, of course, have been directly affected both personally and professionally.

Jolyne Marks, Branch Manager at Westlawn Insurance Brokers in Ballina and resident of Coraki in northern NSW, had to try to protect and salvage her own home – while also trying to help her clients.

Jolyne lost her family home, while the properties of her parents and her brother – all in close proximity – were also significantly damaged. Her husband’s business was also lost to the floods, which took everyone in the town by surprise.

“Our family has owned property on this land for decades – my grandfather previously owned the property and our family had a dairy farm here – and there’s no history of flooding,” she says. “I was working from home and wondering whether to attempt to reach the office because the roads were a bit flooded. I decided to go to have a look at the river levels and watched both arms of the river break their banks.

“We had to move cattle and vehicles, and within 45 minutes our property was cut off.”

Events proceeded at a rapid pace. Water continued to rise. At 2:00 pm power was lost and rain kept falling.

“At that point, we didn’t think our house would be affected, but at 9.30 pm we were shining torches outside and could see our house was completely surrounded by water.”

In the early hours of the morning, water burst into the house and continued to rise while possessions were lifted higher and higher. Water reached knee height indoors, and depths of nine feet outdoors.

“The SES boats came round in the morning to do a ‘proof of life’ check. We went with them to check on my parents and, eventually, my dad heard us and gave us a wave. We had 200 cattle that were standing in water, and he’d been out all night talking to them to try to keep them calm.”

In the days that followed, the affected community congregated in the evacuation centre, which Jolyne describes as a “horrible experience.” But support was in ready supply in the form of the local community, as well as Jolyne’s employer, Westlawn Insurance.

“Chris Dougherty [Westlawn’s General Manager] was very clear – take whatever time you need and we’ll do whatever we can to help. I didn’t really know what that meant, but teams of people came to help. It’s very overwhelming. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the flood water came into the house – by Saturday the property had been stripped back.”

As a broker in the local area, of course, Jolyne had not only her own situation to contend with, but also those of her clients.

“My team in Ballina did a marvellous job, came to my home to help and lodged claims for two weeks straight,” she says.

“I called in to all of my clients that I knew had been directly affected and tried to help as best I could. Some had flood cover, others didn’t, and I gave them options. For some we didn’t know whether they’d be covered or not, I lodged claims to be considered as it may have been storm affected, and we tried to push them through as quickly as possible.”

To read the full article, please refer to the May issue of Insurance Adviser.