At the recent Roofcon event, Richie Rossouw sat down for an insightful conversation with Tobias Patch, the founder and CEO of Brelly on The Roofer’s Helper podcast. Patch’s software company is on a mission to transform how insurance claims are handled, helping contractors, policyholders, and public adjusters collaborate so that claims are paid out “fully, fairly, and fast”.
The Compounding Complexity of Claims
Patch’s journey into building Brelly stems from his extensive experience on multiple sides of the industry. He began his career as an insurance adjuster before eventually building and selling his own restoration firm. Through these roles, he observed a glaring problem: policyholders are suddenly thrust into overwhelming situations where they must make a multitude of crucial decisions all at once. This creates an unequal and highly complex scenario, a burden that also falls heavily on the professionals trying to support them.
Traditionally, it could take a professional a decade to learn everything required to effectively navigate these high-stress situations. Brelly was designed to close this gap by providing software backed by “20 years of experience,” allowing users to make decisions with confidence and simplifying the inherently complex claims process from day one.
The Expectation Gap: The Biggest Mistake Contractors Make
When asked about the most common errors contractors make in the restoration space, Patch highlighted a fundamental disconnect: contractors often fail to acknowledge that they are dealing with an insurance claim.
According to Patch, who has interviewed over 10,000 policyholders, customers fully expect their contractors to help them navigate their insurance claims. While there are specific rules and laws dictating exactly what a contractor can and cannot do in this process, the customer is usually unaware of those boundaries. The biggest mistake contractors make is failing to clearly communicate and set the right expectations from the very beginning. By clearly articulating their role and legal boundaries early on, contractors can avoid frustrating their customers and prevent major problems down the line.
AI: A Difference-Maker, Not Just a Buzzword
Brelly relies heavily on artificial intelligence to compile, organize, and make massive amounts of claims data easily accessible. This allows users to simply drop in their files, connect their emails, and get started without a tedious setup process. However, Patch offers a strong warning for business owners looking to adopt AI.
He notes that while the idea of AI is “sexy,” the actual implementation requires careful planning. A major mistake companies make is adopting AI simply because it is an industry trend, rather than using it to solve a specific, predefined problem. “If you don’t know what you’re trying to solve, then you could end up with 25 different AI products and $20,000 a month in overhead,” Patch warned.
He advises business owners to “get boring for a little bit” and pinpoint the exact inefficiencies they want to fix—such as simplifying customer updates, streamlining intake processes, or handling supplementing—before investing in new technology,. Quoting his mother, Patch summarized the danger of aimless tech adoption: “If you don’t have a target, you’ll hit it every time”.
The Next Five Years: Disruption and Independence
Looking ahead, Patch predicts massive disruption in the industry over the next five years. This shift will be driven by changing customer expectations and the ability of large businesses to leverage big data and AI to move faster and consolidate their value.
Despite this rapid evolution and the frequent acquisition of industry software by massive insurance entities, Brelly remains fiercely protective of its independence. The company’s vision is to create the first independent data set for insurance claims that is not controlled by insurance companies. While Patch recognizes that insurance companies are vital to the ecosystem and hopes to work collaboratively with them to speed up recovery for policyholders, he firmly stated that Brelly will not compromise its core values or hand over control to a single insurance entity,,. The company has already successfully fought back against attempts to force them in directions that misaligned with their vision.
Ultimately, Patch believes the winners in this new technological wave will be the companies highly focused on providing genuine value to their customers, rather than those just selling a tech “trinket” because it has the label of AI.
