NZILA President’s message – Myles Noble

Lockdown laws slowly lessen

Greetings and I hope everyone is safe and well.

As I write this, we in New Zealand are about to exit five weeks of level 4 lockdown – which basically means only essential services have been able to operate. The vast majority of people have been domiciled in their homes unable to have contact with anyone outside their “bubble”.

We will shortly move to a level 3 status which allows a wider range of businesses to re-open (under strict conditions) and allows people to partake in a wider range of recreational activities while still practising social distancing and maintaining a small ”bubble” of people they interact with.

Despite the tragic loss of life, it is very pleasing to see how well NZ has dealt with the Covid-19 crisis, compared with some other countries, and equally how well our industry has adapted to working from home challenges.

The insurance industry has, throughout this event, been deemed an essential service and has quickly had to implement many changes in how we transact business, process claims and deal with clients in general. It is fair to say that things will never be the same again and many of us are now looking at what positive learnings we can take from this, there are many (although “virtual” team Friday drinks are not one of them).

From an NZILA perspective, we too have had to make some changes and adapt. Sadly, we have had to postpone this year’s conference but I am pleased that we have secured new dates at the same Queenstown venues on 15 to 17 September 2021.

We have also had to cancel this year’s annual lecture series. On the positive side we have initiated a new on-line learning platform that will be updated regularly featuring access to articles, webinars and other resources. We have also started work on how we can continue to hold chapter meetings through various formats.

From a non-Covid-19 perspective, the Report of the Public Enquiry into the Earthquake Commission over the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes was released in April.

Much has previously been said about the frustration policyholders experienced in dealing with the EQC and the report’s findings set out several EQC failings and suggested improvements.

From my own experience I am disappointed that, as recently as late in 2019, we were still being advised of “new” over-cap claims and whenever I was referred one of these claims I felt extreme sympathy for the policyholders who had endured more than eight years of uncertainty.

NZILA’s immediate past president Jonathan Scragg has written two articles that provide a good summary of the public inquiry’s findings.

You can read them here.

• Top ten recommendations from the Public Inquiry into the Earthquake Commission
• Public Inquiry into the Earthquake Commission