“We have entrusted our insurance needs to Colin Thoms for over a decade now. When he suggested Trauma insurance was badly lacking in our portfolio we shrugged it off as an unnecessary expense. But he was concerned so he persevered with us… and we trusted his advice.

9 months later when I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, Colin sat by my side whilst I dealt with the enormity of a claim and processed a life threatening illness.

He made the rough journey smooth and saved the financial impact on our family”

– Jacqui (& Colin) Sutherland

We have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Colin as an Insurance Broker and Financial Advisor.

Colin took over our insurance portfolio from our previous broker who had retired. Andrew had previously suffered a heart attack and then more recently a stroke.  As a result of the stroke he was unable to continue in his managerial role at work and was also unable to sustain a full working week. This had a huge impact on his basic earning capacity plus the loss of a full-use work vehicle and bonuses etc.

We had Income Protection insurance in place and had made a small claim at the time of Andrew’s heart attack. However, after both events, Andrew had returned to work relatively soon as part of his recuperation and so we thought we had no claim to make following the stroke. We had spoken with our previous broker prior to his retirement regarding our financial position at the time, and no indication was given that we did have a claim, so we were none the wiser.

However, after Colin took over our portfolio we asked to have a review with him and during the course of our discussions Colin indicated that he thought we had a strong case to make a claim, albeit retrospectively and some two years after the event.

After making some enquiries on our behalf it was found that he was indeed correct. He then set about supporting us in every way he could to get the best possible outcome for us which resulted in us being back paid lost earnings, taking into account the whole remuneration package (car, bonuses, etc) and an income top-up for the balance of the claim period.

Colin’s input was massive. He was persistent on our behalf, advocating for us with the insurance company and communicating fully between them and ourselves. He knew the policy inside and out, knew exactly how it should be interpreted, knew what to push for and fought to make sure he got everything that was owing to us under the policy. He questioned their interpretation on numerous occasions – the whole procedure was made quite a bit more difficult with it being a retrospective claim as it didn’t fit the usual process the insurance company followed when everything is current. Colin’s help and support made this whole exercise so much less stressful. We will always be grateful to him for his professionalism, persistence and generally being on our side!

As we said earlier, we have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Colin because of these qualities.

– Andrew and Ngaire