When Paul Donnelly received an email from Ripe Insurance in December, informing him that he’d won our exclusive prize of a trip to Barbados, he deleted it.

Paul won this prize as part of our competition to celebrate Ripe Insurance reaching 200,000 policyholders at the end of 2018.

Paul is the managing director of a CCTV company, so our email got lost amidst a clutter of messages he’d received that day.

As far as Paul was concerned, the email wasn’t legitimate and he hadn’t won the competition anyway.

When we contacted him a month later to ask him if he’d seen our initial email, he thought it was a hoax. Once he realised the prize was genuine, it’s safe to say he was over the moon.

Paul, a married father-of-two from Sale, Manchester, said: “I thought ‘why me’? I couldn’t believe I’d won the competition and I’m really, really looking forward to the holiday. I’ve been to Barbados before on my honeymoon, so it’ll bring back a lot of good memories.

“I was looking at buying a three-piece suite for the house the weekend before I got contacted by Ripe Insurance, so it’s a good thing I hung fire on that idea!”

Paul has been a keen golfer since childhood, has a handicap of 5 and still plays regularly at Ashton upon Mersey Golf Club. His proudest golfing achievements include recently achieving a hole-in-one and watching his sons grow up to play golf.

Paul will spend a week in Barbados with his wife and two sons in April and is already eyeing up a spot of golf during his time in the Caribbean.

He said: “I’m going to play a couple of rounds at Turtle Beach. As long as it doesn’t eat too much into our holiday, I’m sure my wife won’t mind!”

Of course, playing golf comes with an element of risk. Paul is only too aware of this, as a customer of our golf insurance brand Golf Care.

His friend Anthony Phee lost his sight in one eye after being struck by a wayward shot, resulting in a £397k court case which made national news headlines.

This incident prompted Paul to take out Golf Care’s specialist insurance, to avoid ever being liable for such an event.

He said: “I couldn’t live with myself if I hit a shot that blinded someone else and I didn’t have the right insurance. Anthony’s case really struck a chord with me and I’m very relieved to have specialist cover in case anything goes wrong on the golf course.

“Considering my sons also play golf and I’ve paid up to a grand on golf clubs, it makes perfect sense to protect my equipment and my legal liability by having golf insurance.”

As well as being a Golf Care policyholder, Paul is a customer of another of our brands, Ripe Insurance For Valuables. The reason for this is quite simple – we offered a much greater level of cover at a better price for his watches than this home insurance provider.

The added peace of mind provided by our cover is likely to see Paul remain a Ripe Insurance customer for many years to come.

He said: “The price of Ripe Insurance’s cover is really competitive and you provide such a comprehensive level of cover that I’ve got no reason to look elsewhere.”

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