December 2018

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NZILA President's message
Myles Noble


Sound leadership aided NZILA

It is my privilege to pen my first article as the new NZILA president.

I am humbled and grateful to lead our organisation which is, simply put, in great shape.

Many thanks to my predecessor Jonathan Scragg who, in his four terms as president, provided NZILA with sound leadership and helped achieve membership growth, including increased diversity across various fields of the wider NZ insurance industry; a strong focus on attracting overseas speakers to NZ; increased awareness of NZ on the global stage; greater connection with the NZ Insurance Council and Young Insurance Professionals; appointing a professional secretariat; and ongoing financial stability. 

As part of his immediate past president role, Jonathan attended the AIDA XV World Congress in Rio in October. Read more here.

Thank you to Richard Johnstone and the Canterbury chapter for executing one of our most successful conferences to date. We all enjoyed true South Island hospitality and our return to Christchurch after the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes was a huge success.

The academic program, featuring domestic and overseas speakers, was diverse and engaging with impressive delegate turn outs. Thank you also to the sponsors who made the event possible.

After 21 years’ service to the national committee, Richard Johnstone, this year’s conference convenor, has chosen to step down. What a great innings, Richard. Thank you.

Planning for the Auckland conference (11-13 September 2019) is in progress and  convenor Kavita Deobhakta promises to deliver another superb conference.

Many of you will know I am not a lawyer – although many might also call me not a bad “bush lawyer”. My 25-year career has been largely in claims, originally for an insurer and, for the last 16 years, for broking firm Crombie Lockwood where I lead our claims team and insurer relationships.

It is fair to say I was hesitant to take on the president’s role, given I am not a lawyer. However, one of my goals when I joined the NZILA national committee 12 years ago was to increase the breadth of the association by encouraging more insurers, loss adjusters and brokers to participate.

I am comfortable we have achieved this – to the extent that we have just changed our constitution to reflect this by adding a preference that every second president should come from outside the legal fraternity.

I wish all members a safe, happy holiday period and look forward to more exciting developments for NZILA in 2019.

 
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Resolve is the official publication of the Australian Insurance Law Association and
the New Zealand Insurance Law Association.