Widow of dead miner loses bid to claim life insurance

Wayne and Raewyn Fowlie met, courted, married and had 3 children in WA. In early 2014, for his 59th birthday, they celebrated by taking a nostalgic WA road trip to visit friends and favourite haunts. 3 weeks later, while working at his dream job, underground mining in Norseman WA, Wayne tragically lost his life.

Raewyn had been back home in Dargaville New Zealand just 3 weeks.

Nearly 3 years later, Raewyn has just learned that her bid to receive the life insurance associated with Wayne’s company superannuation scheme, has failed.

If you know Raewyn you know she is an intensely private, highly principled, intelligent, gracious woman. You’ll know too her delightful idiosyncrasy of saying “Well, too, you know” – a precursor, in my case anyway, to making me think of something in a different way.

While I could be angry at the court case result, I'm guided by Raewyn’s “Well, too, you know” and her acceptance that the due process of the law has been followed and that there was always the possibility of losing. She's done what she thought was right, and nevertheless has lost her bid to receive the insurance.

Throughout this ordeal, where many of us would crumble into a heap, she has been fiercely stoic, working fulltime and quietly getting on with dealing with the complicated business of a death in another country . She has been trying to right something that many of us perceived as wrong – sadly unsuccessfully.

While the $128,000 hoped for insurance wasn't a big sum, it was going to make a difference in helping to compensate for the costs associated with Wayne's death, the legal fees associated with the court case (now over $30,000 and still rising), as well as those associated with the different laws in each country regarding his estate, plus travel to and from WA.

This tragedy will never be over for Raewyn and adult children Filipa, Trent and Miranda. Perhaps the 3rd anniversary of Wayne’s death on 15 February 2017 will at last be a time for the family to simply just grieve. Grieve without the financial burden of the previous 3 years. Grieve without a battle to fight. Just grieve. And start to look forward. That's my wish.

If you'd like this for them too, please give a little. Thank you for caring.

In the matter of caring, I know that Raewyn would like to acknowledge the emotional support received from Miners Promise a registered charitable organisation. In memory of Wayne, she intends to make an annual donation to them. See www.minerspromise.org.au for details.

The photo is of Wayne and Raewyn and two of their grandchildren - taken just a short time before Wayne died.

For more about the court case see the link on the right hand side of this page to the 9 November article in WAtoday.

Ive set the page up in the hope that together we can raise funds to help Raewyn cover the costs associated with Wayne's death- the legal fees including those associated with the court case as well as those of requiring estate lawyers in both WA and NZ, plus the travel costs associated with the trips Raewyn has made to and fro between WA and Dargaville. I