Good Cover

17/03/2022

Super stoked to be quoted in the latest insurancenews.com.au article on the flood event here in Northern Rivers.

if you're listening

“What they should do is provide these towns and areas with adequate mitigation and they should stop pumping fossil fuels into the atmosphere and think about cleaning up the environment.”

Brokers are aiding the rebuilding efforts now underway in Lismore, NSW, and surrounding towns as floodwaters start to recede after more than two weeks of heavy rains, helping clients lodge claims and even donning gumboots and rain gear to help with the mopping up.

12/12/2021

Tune in at 11.15am or so when I will be appearing on BayFM, Byron's famous community radio station, where resident business guru Phil Daly will be interviewing me on his show!

Phil has been the host of Byron Business, People and Lifestyle for an amazing 19 years! It is a real honour to be invited onto the show to talk about risk, insurance and the local economy. Phil is a living legend, coach, mentor and long-time advocate for the local Byron economy.

Super stoked to be on the show.

17/11/2021

What is your tolerance to uncertainty?

How much uncertainty can you embrace before negative thoughts take hold? How much ambiguity can you live with in your life, how much certainty do you need to be for you to truly be at ease.

There is nothing like starting your own business to introduce uncertainty into your life! One day you’re busy, the next you’re not, what you thought would work doesn’t, what you didn’t does …. no two days are the same.

The highs are exhilarating, the lows are a gut punch, and the uncertainty is the only constant.

The irony of course is that I work in an industry where I transfer financial risk to insurers to provide certainty so my clients can pursue their dreams and ambitions.

My journey so far has taught me that some uncertainty can be a truly beautiful thing. I have learnt to lean into uncertainty and embrace the discomfort as the rewards far outweigh any anxiety that the uncertainty may generate. (also, make sure your insurances are up to date, fit for purpose and you have a good broker on your side!)

28/09/2021

Are you entitled to a premium refund?

COVID has caused many businesses turnover to drop dramatically, this is not breaking news.

However this is ….. from an insurance perspective one of the consequences of a dramatic drop in turnover is that you may well be entitled to a refund of some of your premium from your insurer.
I know insurers aren’t well known for returning premiums! To be honest, that is typically because they are not being asked. Forgive me while I jump into some detail.

The estimate of your turnover that you declare to your insurer each year is a key rating factor on your Public Liability policy and your Business Interruption policy (if you have one). To put this in another way insurers use your estimated turnover to produce their premium (they use a bunch of other factors as well, but turnover is central), basically more turnover equates to more risk …… and in this time of COVID less turnover equals less risk. Insurers charge premiums based on the risk. If the risk has reduced, so should the premium. It’s that simple.

Now I am not saying a total refund, you still have risk even with periods of low or no turnover. Nor do I know your individual circumstance. What I am saying though is that your broker should be asking this question. Not at the time of the renewal, but right now. There is nothing that prevents insurers from returning premium mid-way through a policy period.

Every bit counts right? If you are interested send me a PM or call me on 0411 011 595 and I can send you my Top 8 tips for reducing your insurance spend (and improve your business risk profile at the same time).

06/09/2021

Why I love where I live

On Friday I got a delivery, not unusual given we’re in lockdown but this was different. This was a hand-crafted bottle of first release rum from a local distiller, Winding Road Distilling Co, delivered to my door by the distiller and owner himself Mark Awad.

Think about it. Just a single bottle of rum, delivered at 5.30pm on a Friday night to my door. Mark and I had a great chat about the rum, the history of the distillery, how he developed his passion living in San Diego and when he fell in love with an Aussie girl, which brought the dream to Northern Rivers.

It’s a great rum, actually it’s a fantastic rum, and while I was sipping it made me think how fortunate I am to live where I live.

Since COVID broke, and we have suffered through various lockdowns, we have been really focused to eat local, to grab take away from all our favourite places, and try new ones. To buy from the farmers markets and avoid the big Woolies and Coles for all but those items you just can’t get anywhere else. I won’t lie to you, it’s been brilliant.

I’ve met cheese makers, oyster farmers, brewers, distillers, orchardist, bakers and more. Better yet I know them by name to say hello in the street or at the market. COVID sucks for sure, but being locked down in a region I love, well you have to look for the silver linings to every cloud.

26/08/2021

3rd world telecommunications in 1st world Australia!

Having strong, stable and available internet and mobile phone connection is right up there with running water and toilets that flush! So, when the opportunity came up to talk directly to the 2021 Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee, we here at Good Cover, jumped at the opportunity.

This won’t come as a surprise, but Australia is so far off the pace when it comes to telecommunications infrastructure that in 2019, IMD World Digital Competitiveness ranked us as 54 out of 63 countries reviewed for Communications Technology. Again, we are 54th! By contrast Australia is the 13th largest economy in the world!

So, what did we have to say to the committee:

1. If you drive from Byron to Brisbane your mobile phone will drop out for a good period around the Sleepy Hollow area. If you drive South to Sydney, you will get multiple dropouts, often for 30 mins at a time. We are talking about the main highway linking Australia’s largest and third largest city! Once you leave the highway your going back to the digital dark ages!

By way of contrast Good Cover founder Matt Williamson, pre COVID, was getting 5 bars, uninterrupted, standing in the middle of the Serengeti in Tanzania. With a day’s drive in any direction to get to a village, nothing but elephants and lions for company yet somehow we struggle to get mobile reception in the main street of Bangalow!

2. We have NBN fibre to the node in Bangalow, as they do in most locations in Australia, where NBN has been rolled out. Sounds OK, but the truth is that last hop from the node to your home or business is done on copper. This is like driving a Ferrari to within a couple of km’s of your destination and then jumping on an old Malvern Star bike to finish the trip. Literally, for most of Australia awesome speeds and reliable service is as close as their node, in our case at the end of our street, but that last 300m kills all the good work leading up to it.

Here in Bangalow, we have people and business, ourselves included, willing to stump up our own money to contribute alongside the government to get the fibre rolled out that last few steps … and still we can’t seem to get the government to come to the party!

3. As a customer have you ever tried to call Telstra and speak to a human? Good luck. Telstra push as many calls as they can off to a text/message channel and it’s infuriating. How can it be that a company making a $1.7 billion profit can’t answer the phone?

In any normal circumstance people would happily vote with their feet, but here in regional Australia there are often no other options!

At Good Cover we proud to take an active role in our community, advocating for change, working with whomever, whenever, to move our community forward. We will be working with a number of others to back up todays discussion with a written submission to the committee with practical suggestions of how we can fix some of these long-standing issues so stay tuned for more on this.

18/08/2021

I love Lismore. It is truly one of NSW’s great regional cities. There is a great feel about it that you don’t find in other parts of the Northern Rivers. It’s a city that proudly has its sleeves rolled up and is ready for an honest day’s work. The CBD is filled with businesses that reflect the diverse nature of its surrounding area. Not dominated by tourism, like its neighbour Byron Shire with its 2.2 million visitors a year, Lismore feels more grounded with its industry, farming and manufacturing.

However, when you look at the number of businesses that employ people in Lismore LGA, its slowly in decline. In 2020 some 52 businesses that employed at least 1 person closed their doors. In the same year 40 businesses started up so that’s a net loss of 12 employing businesses. That’s 12 businesses that represent someone’s dreams and aspirations, 12 opportunities to create gainful employment for local folk. It’s always sad to see a business close and no doubt when the ABS releases the numbers on the financial year just past it will be sobering news.

Yesterday I got a call from a budding entrepreneur who is launching his business right in the middle of COVID lock down. He and his business partner are leasing premises right in the middle of town, filling it with stock and opening for business. It will start with 2 employees and will use the services of even more local contractors and trades, they have big plans and his enthusiasm was infectious.

It’s scary times at the moment with COVID generating so much uncertainty, so it’s worth remembering some of Australia’s most known business were born out of adversity. Priceline Pharmacies launched in 1982 during a recession; JB HiFi launched in 1974 as the Australian economy was shrinking after the Oil Crisis of 73’, even Cotton On launched in 1991 in the midst of ‘the recession we had to have’ with unemployment at 10.8% and interest rates as high as 17%!

At Good Cover we are here to help you with your insurances, to understand your risk profile and how to take the practical steps to make your new venture safe and protected.
Innovation, entrepreneurship and just plain getting in there and giving it a crack should be celebrated in these troubled time.

At Good Cover we’re in your corner, every step of the way.

09/08/2021

When lockdown ends, go take a holiday!

This just blew me away ….. recent Roy Morgan research has estimated as at May 2021 Australians had 175 million days of annual leave, up a staggering 23 million days from early 2020.

The reality is all lockdown and no play makes for pretty stressed out people!

Ironically accommodation businesses are doing it tough as people alternate between being locked in their houses or too scared to book a holiday.

Here is my hot tip. Byron Bay, and the surrounding hinterland is fantastic in winter. Bright sunshine, long windless days, whales jumping and all the great restaurants and cafes without the summer crowds.

I spent a wonderful sunny winters morning with one of my clients www.baskandstow.com.au on Friday just past. It was heart breaking to see such an amazing location empty (check it out, this place is awesome), we had coffee at the famous Top Shop, again basically empty. Hell, I even went for a surf at The Pass and there was hardly anyone out!

Jump online, book your trip, pack your bags and as soon as lockdown is done …… hit the road. Life is too short.

01/08/2021

We're on the hunt to work for free!

At Good Cover we're passionate about community, and we believe in giving back. So how do we do this?

If you are a not for profit, you are within one of our community groups and our values are aligned, then we will donate back to your community group all income that we generate for placing your insurances. In addition we won’t charge you for any advice or service we provide. We’re doing it for the love!

You can checkout our policy at: www.goodcover.com.au/GoodfortheCommunity.pdf

Or you can call our Founder & Principal Broker on 0411 011 595 to talk through your circumstances or email [email protected] and we'll get back to you.

Good Cover – Insurance Done Right.

Good Cover is an insurance brokerage that was started with thr