First scope read
Fifteen minutes on the phone with your offer letter and your builder’s scope in front of us. We tell you what the gap is and which of three routes is yours. No file is opened.
$0Free. Always. Including when we say no.
Home · strata · small business · Perth metro
We work the gap between the insurer’s offer and the builder’s scope.
Send us the offer and your builder’s scope. We will say what the difference is worth — and when the free route beats paying us.
- First scope read is free. No file opened, no engagement letter.
- Nothing recovered, nothing owed. Our fee is 15% of the gap we recover, minimum $900 — our number, not a market rate.
- We are advocates, not lawyers. We give no legal advice, and we never tell you what a claim is likely to do.
Under a $3,000 gap this page tells you to use the free route instead, quotes the regulator’s own words for it, and charges you nothing for saying so.
The settlement gap check
Two numbers off your own paperwork
Try one:
The gap
$29,500
The distance between what the insurer has offered and what your builder says the work costs.
What our fee costs you, by the size of the gap
Our $900 minimum stops biting at a $6,000 gap. Below that you pay more than 15% — which is why we stop taking the work at $3,000.
Figures are ours and are worked from the two numbers you type. Nothing here is a prediction, a valuation or legal advice.
What we do and what it costs
Five things, priced in public
Most claims advocates will not put a percentage on a website. Here is ours, on the page, before you ring.
Written scope comparison
The insurer’s scope beside your builder’s on one page, line by line, with every omission, every allowance and every trade rate marked. Yours to send yourself.
from $480Fixed fee, quoted before we start
Full claim advocacy
We carry the file: the correspondence, the evidence, the loss adjuster, the insurer’s internal dispute resolution, and the reports we ask your trades for.
15% of the gap recoveredMinimum $900. Our fee, not a market rate.
Strata and common property
Water through a common wall, a failed riser, a roof over four lots. We work with the strata manager and the council of owners, and we put the lot boundary in writing early.
from $1,200Fixed engagement for the scope stage
Nothing recovered, nothing owed
If the insurer does not move, we do not invoice. There is no hourly rate running behind the percentage and no file-opening fee.
$0On every advocacy file we take
The practice we are breaking: in this trade the fee is usually a conversation you have after you have already sent your paperwork. Ours is 15% of the gap we recover with a $900 minimum, it is on this page, and it is our number — not an industry standard and not a market rate. Other advocates charge differently. Ask them what they charge before you send them anything.
Where the minimum bites, the gap check says what percentage you are actually paying. It does not wait for you to work it out.
How a file runs
The adjuster who came to your house works for the insurer. That is their job, not a scandal.
It does mean nobody in the process is being paid to argue your builder’s scope. That is the whole of what we do.
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01
You send the paperwork
Policy schedule, the insurer’s scope and offer, your builder’s written scope, the claim number and your photos. Email or a phone photo of each page is fine.
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02
We read the scope against the policy
Line by line. Omissions, allowances that do not meet the trade rate, and cover wording that is being read narrowly. We mark what we can evidence and what we cannot.
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03
We tell you which route is yours
Free: the insurer’s own internal dispute resolution, then AFCA. Fixed: a written comparison you send yourself. Or us on the file at 15% of what we recover.
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04
If we take it, we carry it
Correspondence, evidence, the adjuster, and the insurer’s complaints team. You are copied into everything. If nothing is recovered, nothing is owed.
What we do not do
- We are not lawyers. We give no legal advice, on this page or on a file.
- We do not tell you what a claim is likely to do. Nobody honest can.
- We do not write or sell insurance and we are not your broker.
- We do not charge a “file opening”, “administration” or “AFCA lodgement” fee.
- We do not take a claim purely because it is big enough to be worth taking.
- We do not act for insurers, loss adjusters or builders. Only for the claimant.
What clients say about the work
Paperwork, not villains
“She put the insurer’s scope beside our builder’s on one page and marked every line that was missing — flashings, two ceilings, the scaffold. I finally understood what I was arguing about.”
Kirsten M.Mount Hawthorn · storm damage, roof and ceilings
“A common-property claim is a different animal. They handled the strata manager, the plumber’s report and the insurer’s portal, and every single email was copied to the council of owners.”
Council of owners, 14 lotsComo · burst riser, four lots affected
“They read our scope and told us to go to the insurer’s own complaints team first, and that they would not open a file for it. That is not what I expected from a phone call about money.”
Daniel T.Welshpool · small workshop, smoke damage
These describe the work, not the result. We publish no outcomes and we predict none — not on this page, not on the phone, and not in a letter of engagement.
Where we work
The Perth metropolitan area, Joondalup to Rockingham
We read paperwork, so most of a file runs by email and phone. We attend the property when the scope is in dispute and the adjuster is meeting your builder on site.
Suburbs we are in most
- Subiaco
- Joondalup
- Scarborough
- Mount Lawley
- Morley
- Bassendean
- Midland
- Kalamunda
- Cottesloe
- Fremantle
- Victoria Park
- Como
- Canning Vale
- Armadale
- Rockingham
- Mandurah on request
Storm and hail seasons move the work around the metro; the scope argument does not change with the postcode. If your property is outside these suburbs, ring and ask — the first scope read is free wherever the house is.
Questions we get before anyone sends paperwork
Straight answers
What is a loss adjuster, and whose side are they on?
A loss adjuster is engaged by the insurer to inspect the damage, work out what the policy responds to, and report back with a scope and a cost. They are competent, they are usually courteous, and they are being paid by the insurer. That is the arrangement, and it is not a scandal.
What it means practically is that nobody in the process is being paid to argue your builder’s scope. If the insurer’s scope has left out the flashings, or has allowed a rate your trade will not work for, someone has to say so in writing with evidence attached. That is the job we do.
What is IDR, and why do you keep pointing at it?
IDR is internal dispute resolution — the insurer’s own complaints process, which every financial firm has to run. It costs you nothing and you do not need us to lodge it.
AFCA puts it plainly on its own page: If you’re experiencing a problem with a financial firm, the first step is usually to raise it with them directly.
A lot of scope arguments move at that step, and when they do, nobody has paid a percentage of anything.
When is AFCA the better route than paying you?
Whenever the money in dispute does not justify a share of it going to us — and in our view that is any gap under $3,000, which is why the gap check above refuses those files on screen rather than in a phone call.
The Australian Financial Complaints Authority is the external dispute resolution scheme for financial firms. In AFCA’s words: AFCA’s complaint resolution scheme is free of charge for Complainants
, and A Financial Firm is not permitted to recover its costs from a Complainant in connection with our consideration of a complaint.
AFCA also says There is no need to obtain legal or other advice when lodging a complaint unless you wish to.
Their page on making a complaint says completing the complaint online usually takes 30–50 minutes, and their public line is 1800 931 678. We will hand you all of that for free and take nothing for it.
What do you need from me to start?
Five things, and a phone photo of each page is fine: your policy schedule and product disclosure statement, the insurer’s scope of works and offer letter, your builder’s or assessor’s written scope, your claim number, and the photos you took on the day.
If you only have two of the five, ring anyway. The first read is free and we will tell you which of the missing ones actually matters.
How exactly does the fee work?
On a full advocacy file, 15% of the gap we recover, with a minimum of $900, and nothing at all if nothing is recovered. That is our fee. It is not an industry standard and it is not a market rate — other advocates set their own, and you should ask each of them what theirs is.
Where the $900 minimum is more than 15% of your gap, the gap check says so and prints the real percentage you would be paying. We would rather you saw that before you engaged us than after.
Are you lawyers? Can you tell me whether I will win?
No, and no. We are claims advocates. We read policies and scopes and we write evidence-backed correspondence. We are not admitted to practise law, we give no legal advice on this page or on a file, and if a matter needs a lawyer we will say so and stop.
We also will not tell you what your claim is likely to do. Nobody honest can, and a business paid on a percentage is the last business you should believe about it.
Does strata work differently?
The paperwork does. A common-property claim usually involves the strata company’s policy rather than yours, a strata manager in the middle, and a lot boundary that decides who is even the claimant. We put that boundary in writing early, because arguing a scope for the wrong party wastes a month.
Start with the free read
Send us the two numbers and we will tell you which route is yours
Fifteen minutes, no file opened, no engagement letter, and no charge — including when the answer is “do it yourself, it is free”.
Got it. Nothing has been opened.
This is a demonstration page, so nothing was actually sent — on the real build this lands in the practice’s inbox and a claims advocate rings back within one business day, or the same day if the offer is already sitting in front of you.
Demonstration only: no data left your browser and no request was made.
Have these to hand
- Policy schedule and product disclosure statement
- The insurer’s scope of works and offer letter
- Your builder’s or assessor’s written scope
- Claim number and the adjuster’s name
- The photos you took on the day
If the insurer has given you a date to accept by, ring rather than email.