As an adviser, there are few things more challenging than sitting across the table from someone who has just been given the news they have bowel cancer asking “So tell me how is my plan going to work?”

When it comes down to it the right policy is only half of the solution. In this situation not only did we put the plan in place, when it has come to this point we have it right, exactly how they want it.

When we say we put our clients front and centre, we mean it. After answering ‘that’ question above, not only has our client taken the time to say thank you for persevering, they took the time to write the following.

Which speaks for itself

Recently I turned 50, like everyone else at that age a free bowel screening test arrives in the post just to remind you that you’re old! 

In denial about my age and typical of me it sat there for Months until one day I had nothing else to do and I got sick of looking at it!

My internal dialogue went something like this... I’m symptom free and let’s face bad stuff happens to other people not me! I’ll take the silly test, what have I got to loose! Well as it turns out, a lot apparently... It returned a positive result!

Life as I knew it just changed in an instant.

When I got the call with the results I went everywhere in my mind with this diagnosis, being the drama queen that I am I had myself dead and buried before I even hung up from Waitemata Bowel screening clinic. 

At the time I was driving around madly trying to find a bathroom in Albany (because I’m symptom free! Yeah right!) I ended up in snapper rock graveyard making a mad dash to the toilet through a funeral possession. 

The irony of that was last time I was there I buried my friend from bowel cancer! He was only 38 years old!... 

There was my Mac truck, it plowed straight through my life! The universe was telling me to Wake the hell up!

Where to from here?... My mind was racing and went to “what about my kids, what about my mortgage!... will they be ok?? What insurances do I have?” In the mayhem of my mind I knew exactly who to call..

Jon Paul has been in my life as my insurance Broker in some format or another consistently month after month for the past 2-3 years advising me on the cover I needed, what risks being self-employed has, what can happen along the way etc. 

Little did I know each time that phone rung and i was too busy to pick it up, pushed the red telephone on my mobile or I deleted yet another email from him that I would bless the day his persistence, dedication and professionalism paid off in my life! He never gave up on me... Thank you for seeing straight through my busy life and knowing I needed you!

With the calmness and patience of a saint he handled my burbled panicked phone call with the exact strength and manner I needed at the time. 

Within just hours he had checked my insurance, instructed me there’s no way we are having you wait for the public system given my neurotic state of mind, (he didn’t say that by the way) and I was never made to feel that way either, for a control freak he handled me beautifully !! 

He had phoned Southern Cross, phoned Mercy Ascot, secured a time and date three days from now for the colonoscopy. He had driven to The Northshore Private Health care clinic on the Shore, checked a time for me there and had given me the choice of the two clinics to pick from and then around to my house to run through everything I have in place to cover me!...

It blew me away to be shown so much compassion and understanding from another human being... I wasn’t just a number, or just a client I was a person who needed help. 

With some people you just know that their sole purpose in life is to help other people, this is what they were designed by god to do. You gave me comfort in a time that I felt helpless and vulnerable and for that I can’t thank you enough Jon-Paul! 

You haven’t lost the human element in what you do, it’s not just a job for you it’s your mission in life and to me that is rare and priceless... I said at the time to you, you had just won Gods employee of the Month!

My Journey has just started, they removed 41 growths from by bowel with another 12 to go, I will be on Bowel watch for the rest of my life and I’m in limbo waiting for the diagnosis. 

I prey I have been just given a warning but no matter what the outcome I know my life is covered, and my children will be taken care of and that you have restored my faith that people in the world like you still exist! Thankyou!! Thankyou, thankyou!!

Where to from here?

We will be there with them for the duration of their journey, wherever it takes them for however long it takes. While it is easy to say we’re doing our job, it is more than that, it is about looking after people…

This is what you sign up for when you take an insurance policy with an adviser like us. Someone who will be there through the good times and the not so great.

If you don’t have a great adviser, then it’s high time you got one.