VILLAGEx 2022 Founder Friday: brelly
Founder Fridays is a series that spotlights VILLAGEx founders and their startups
Becoming a victim of a natural disaster is unpredictable and stressful enough– seeking professional expertise or information on insurance recovery relief shouldn’t be an added stress.
Since 2017, Tobias Patch, a construction and insurance professional of over 15 years, has been paying close attention to a set of questions repeatedly heard from disaster victims. As an insurance claim specialist, he frequently gets asked “How do I handle this?” “What do I do?” and “What am I supposed to do next?” For Patch, he says, “those questions just stuck with me.” Helping people work through highly stressful situations to have a better chance of recovering faster is why he founded tech startup brelly (formerly Claimly) in 2021 – a user-friendly insurance claims management app that provides accessible, handy step-by-step guides and unbiased information to anyone in the disaster recovery process.
“[Insurance claim handling] is a high stakes situation that requires a lot of knowledge [in a short period],” said Patch. He realized there wasn’t anything on the market like brelly to help victims obtain information or provide guidance on the process. As an insurance claim specialist, he said, “You notice instantly that this is a problem people are facing. I want to be helpful to people.”
Things are kicking off for Patch and brelly with his recent award as Industry Entrepreneur of the Year from Storm Ventures Group, the largest group of emergency services that handle disaster events and insurance based recovery and repair. In addition, Patch recently welcomed a new CTO and co-founder of brelly, Chad Caldwell, who has 25 years of experience in systems architecture and software development. brelly is in its early stage proof of concept phase of growth. Patch considers the startup to be pre-seed , with plans to launch the product and begin helping people by the end of the 2022 VILLAGEx program. “I'm on a mission to dispel the myths of how difficult it is to handle insurance claims and instead make disaster recovery simple and accessible to everyone," said Patch.
Tobias Patch receiving the 2022 Industry Entrepreneur of the Year from Storm Ventures Group.
Q & A
(Responses have been edited for clarity)
What is brelly designed to do?
“It’s designed to give people peace of mind in a hectic and stressful time and to do so without intruding on their life. It gives victims the ability to gain peace of mind through their own actions and [clarify] what they’re responsible for doing. And then, they can reach out to professionals and people to help them through [the disaster claim insurance] application, so they have the chance to recover quickly and more fully.”
Why New Orleans?
“I didn’t have a plan for how brelly was all going to come together. And it all came together in New Orleans. The energy was right. A lot of people love this city and I think there’s a good reason for that.”
How has VILLAGEx helped you thus far?
“Interacting with the people who've been through VILLAGEx and hearing what they say about the experience and the impact the accelerator has had on their business and personal lives has been so motivating. [The Village community] is putting their effort, time, and energy into us as people and as founders trying to build something. To have the support that’s focused on you and your company is really special to have.”
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brelly is a new system for managing property owners’ insurance claims. It has tools that help individuals understand the important aspects around decisions and communication with different people and providers who will help you recover from your property loss. It also connects the property owner with the providers to facilitate the next steps to recovery.