1973- My very first Claim

Recently, our director Terry Brain wrote me this email to share with our audience Milbourne Insurance Solutions .

Paul,

You have heard this story on more than one occasion. I still tear up every time I think about it.

Hopefully, there is a message in there for somebody.

“I was 27, married with one child, a mortgage and had just completed my third year slowly building my life insurance practice. Edward had become a client during my first year in business.

He was a few months older than me, married to Lee, with a son aged eight and a mortgage. He had requested a meeting at their home at 8pm on a cold, wet, Melbourne winter’s evening. I had reviewed his file prior to our meeting and arrived full of optimism that this was an occasion to increase his covers.

Edward welcomed me with what I thought was an unusual opening remark. “I want to thank you for what you have done for me”.

He then went on to explain that he had an aggressive, late-stage cancer and had been given approximately three months to live.

Edward was a Vietnam veteran, who had been exposed to Agent Orange, a defoliant which the US army employed quite liberally during the Vietnam War, and which is acknowledged today as a lethal carcinogenic.

He explained that the policy which I had previously arranged for him would enable Lee to fully discharge their mortgage, leaving enough for her to ensure that their son could enjoy the education which they had planned for.

His concern was to ensure that there would be no impediment to his Claim being promptly dealt with. We sat in their living room as I explained the claim’s process to Edward, Lee and their son.

A few short months later, in an era well before the time of electronic transfers, I personally delivered the insurer’s cheque to Lee.

I have often reflected about Edward’s Claim. A dying man taught me the true value of the profession which I had selected by chance. It has sustained me for more than fifty years!”