NZILA President’s message
Jonathan Scragg

Queenstown to host annual conference

The highlight of the NZILA calendar remains the annual conference but 2016 will also feature many other notable events.

This year the annual conference will be hosted in Queenstown on 21-23 September. The theme is: Looking farther afield. I hope to see a big gathering of NZILA members there so mark your diaries now.

This year NZILA is introducing a national lecture series, to be held in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland.

Ian Enright, Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Technology, Sydney, will present The Insurance Social Contract: 1788 and all that.

It is an adaptation of the lecture he presented around Australia last year in the Geoff Masel Memorial Lecture Series for AILA, which featured in the December 2015 issue of Resolve.

Prof Enright, with Professor Robert Merkin and former Australian High Court judge Michael Kirby, wrote the Fourth Edition of Sutton on Insurance Law, published in December 2014.

He is also the author of Professional Indemnity Insurance Law, the second edition of which was awarded the 2008 British Insurance Law Association book prize as "the most notable contribution to literature in the field of law as it affects insurance".

At the 2015 AILA annual conference in Melbourne, Prof Enright was awarded the 2015 AILA Insurance Law prize in recognition of his substantial contribution to insurance law.

In the inaugural NZILA lecture, he will take an irreverent look at historical movements and people who made insurance what it is and the role it plays in society.

Prof Enright will consider developments in disclosure, utmost good faith, contract certainty and misconduct.

The Christchurch lecture is on Tuesday 15 March; Wellington is on Wednesday 16 March; and Auckland is on Thursday 17 March.

The cost is $25 including GST. Registrations are open via the NZILA website. NZILA is hosting the lecture series but working with law faculties to encourage law students to attend. Students will be admitted free.

The NZILA national committee aims to make the lecture series an annual event.

In other news, NZILA has agreed to sponsor a prize for the top student in insurance law from each university law school which does not already offer such a prize.

NZILA life member Richard Johnstone and I are on the organising committee for the planned Asia Pacific insurance law conference in Singapore on 19-21 September 2017. For more information, see Sue Vidler and Chris Rodd’s columns in this issue.

I hope many NZILA members will support the event by attending or being involved in some way.

On 18 February, NZILA hosted a discussion group seminar in Palmerston North. Nick Mereu, legal counsel for the Insurance Council of New Zealand, spoke on: Disruption and innovation in insurance.

His co-presenter was Crawford & Co’s Stuart Day, whose topic was: Claims adjustment – not always a clear process.

The event was hosted by NZILA vice president Myles Noble.

During 2016, NZILA will host discussion group seminars in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. The first is likely to be held before the end of April in Auckland, co-hosted with ICNZ.

NZILA will develop a relationship with a new organisation that has been launched in Auckland, Young Insurance Professionals, and YIPs will be encouraged to attend NZILA events.

I wish all NZILA members a successful year in 2016 and look forward to seeing you at one or more of our events this year.