A young Tylie on the farm. Tylie’s dad, Bill, on the farm with her oldest son Alex. Four generations of family: Tylie and her dad, Bill, her son, Alex, and her nan, Margaret, celebrating Margaret’s 85th birthday last December.

Lucky break for AILA board member

Profile: Tylie Petrovski, AILA board member
by Resolve Editor Kate Tilley

Like many in the industry, Tylie Petrovski says she fell into insurance, but it’s been a fortuitous fall because claims management enables her to help people at a low point in their lives.

“About 15 years ago I was bored with my previous job and applied for an entry-level job doing claims,” she told Resolve.

Tylie has since progressed up the ladder and is now CGU’s Senior Claims Specialist for complex and specialty claims.

“I like the variety of people you meet and helping people when they need it,” she says.

There are myriad challenges as she seeks innovative solutions for problems like how to repair a client’s damaged property while concurrently enabling them to maintain their business. “We help customers get back to where they were before the event occurred.

“People are so vulnerable when they’ve got nothing left. That spurs me to do the best I can for them. It’s not just about processing claims, it’s why people buy insurance and that’s why we are here.”

Raw emotion

After an event like a bushfire, people have often lost their homes, their animals and have only the clothes they were wearing. Tylie finds those claims challenging because of the raw emotion involved but is gratified by being able to help people financially and physically, through finding temporary accommodation or whatever else is required.

“When there’s a bushfire, it’s often a close-knit rural community that’s affected, so it’s not an isolated claim. But country folk are kind, generous and appreciative of anything you can do to help.”

Tylie joined AILA in May 2022 when the then-president Cameron Roberts reached out, seeking someone with a property background to join the national board.

She appreciates the opportunity to share her knowledge and make contacts with people within the industry with whom she may not otherwise have connected.

“It’s important to get outside your bubble,” she told Resolve.

Tylie says AILA’s value lies in providing education, learning and networking opportunities and, given the diversity of members across insurers, brokers, loss adjusters, lawyers and more, AILA helps them all to gain a broader understanding of the entirety of the industry.

Farming background

Tylie’s empathy for CGU claimants was instilled in her as she and her two brothers grew up on a dairy farm under the careful eye of her father, Bill, the person whom she admires most in life.

Her dad still works on the farm and Tylie is cognisant of the farming community’s commitment to working from sunup to sundown seven days a week because that’s what you need to do.

“Dad instilled a strong work ethic in me and my brothers and the attitude that if you want something in life you need to work for it. You need to set life goals and ensure you support yourself to achieve them,” she says.

Those strengths are embodied in Tylie’s compassionate attitude to claimants who have nothing left after disaster strikes and motivate her to go the extra mile to ensure insurance gives them a helping hand to recover.

Tylie and her husband, Robert, have two sons, Alex, 10, and Max, 6, so weekends are family time.

Asked what she would never give up, Tylie’s response is quick: chocolate is her firm favourite.