CASE STUDY: BUNDABERG, CYCLONE OSWALD .
Arcbuild’s emergency response capabilities see an experienced mobile workforce together with sophisticated communication systems get people back in their homes and businesses faster. “We utilise cloud-based applications that enable supervisors on the ground to receive claim details minutes after head office has received them,” said Arcbuild Insurance Managing Director Darren Paxton.
As this timeline 2013 shows, when catastrophe strikes as a force of nature, Arcbuild is able to deploy a team of skilled professionals to assess the damage and get remediation work underway.
January 26: Bureau of Meteorology issues an urgent flood warning for Bundaberg in north Queensland
January 27: Evacuations begin for residents of North and East Bundaberg; all roads to and from the town now cut
January 29: River levels rise above 9 metres, breaks records
February 5: Arcbuild responds to Lend Lease Project Manager’s request to fill out an Expression of Interest for repair works via Suncorp Insurance
February 12: Arcbuild’s established emergency response procedures are used to set up necessary accommodation and logistics for rapid deployment of mobile workforce; Director Darren Paxton is able to remotely supervise systems via up-to-date communications that ensure rapid professional turnover and claims
February 18: Arcbuild restoration team starts assessing flooded properties with cloud-based quoting system, which sees three supervisors visit 18 properties per day during 17-hour workdays. Data instantly submitted to Arcbuild head office via Skydrive on iPads
February 20: 18 properties assessed, quoted and returned to Lend Lease in the first 24 hours
June 30: 46 properties currently under Arcbuild construction; 78 properties assessed and quoted to date
November 22: Deadline to have all properties repaired and residents back in their restored homes. Turn over estimated at $5.1 million in repairs within nine months
The key to Arcbuild’s swift response system is a truly collaborative cloud-system communication platform. Here’s an example of how it handled a Bundaberg insurance claim following Oswald:
- Arcbuild is allocated a claim for a specific Bundaberg case via email on February 18 at 11.22am
- Claim is processed at Arcbuild HQ and Case Documents are opened on Arcbuild’s cloud-based system
- Supervisors on-ground in Bundaberg are notified of claim details at 11.41am
- Supervisor contacts client and organises site inspection and measure for 12.30pm
- Supervisor completes assessment and measures up; takes 27 photos of damaged residence on iPad and uploads data and images to Arcbuild’s cloud-based system
- Estimators at Arcbuild HQ are able to start quotation on the updated document within Arcbuild’s cloud-based system
- Estimators at Arcbuild HQ proceed to finalise the quotation
- At 3.11pm same day quotation is complete and forwarded for acceptance
- 17 other damaged properties that day are processed the same way