Celebrity Chef Neil Perry now understands insurance

This week I attended the AIMS insurance conference in Adelaide.

On the final dinner, the menu was arranged and presented by internationally acclaimed chef, Mr Neil Perry. His first words on coming on stage was to explain that he did not know what insurance was about till three weeks ago when his flagship restaurant, The Sydney Rockpool was severely damaged by fire.

With the restaurant now opened he said, he now knows that “Insurance gives you your life back”.  It was a powerful statement as to the value of good insurance. So many people say that having a major loss in their business is like having a very sick child. It creates enormous stress but this turns to even bigger relief when it turns out for the better.

As I explained in an earlier posting, LMI were appointed by Mr Perry’s company through his insurance broker to mitigate this loss and prepare the insurance claim. We arranged 70 different contractors to ensure that the restaurant reopened as quickly as possible.  A lot needed to be done. In addition to the fire damage there was a lot of water and it is always important to ensure everything is dried and there is no possibility of mould occurring. Could you image the brand damage to any restaurant if people started getting ill.

The restaurant reopened in record time and the insurer through their loss adjusters, met requests for progress payments promptly.

It was only right and proper that Mr Perry praised his insurer Allianz for being so good.

I think  most of us in the room wished we had a video camera rolling as it would be good for every business owner to hear  Mr Perry’s testimonial to the insurance industry.