Insurance

Our team of insurance lawyers provide expert advice to the insurance market. We provide a complete service that captures claims and dispute resolution, regulatory and corporate advice, risk management and advisory work.  

We know the insurance market. We work for insurers, intermediaries and insureds, including corporate and government clients. We give clear, practical advice, and deliver excellent service and outcomes for our clients. 

Claims and dispute resolution

As liability specialists, we’ve worked across all policy lines, including liability, fire and general, property, health, life, travel, directors and officers, warranty and indemnity, construction, and reinsurance. We advise on complex indemnity/policy response issues and are regularly appointed as defence counsel to help our client’s customers respond to claims or complaints about them.

We are also the team of choice for many insureds facing insurance and risk concerns. We act for insureds on contentious and non-contentious claims including providing advice on material damage and business interruption claims arising from the Canterbury earthquakes and Cyclone Gabrielle.

Commercial and regulatory

We provide commercial and regulatory advice to the insurance sector, offering commercial solutions underpinned by insurance sector expertise through the whole lifecycle. This includes mergers and acquisitions, portfolio transfers, capital raisings, restructuring/insolvency, establishment (including licensing, and collaborating to develop corporate policies, procedures, controls, and risk and assurance programmes), and reporting (including climate-related financial reporting).

For the fintech and overseas insurer sectors, we can help with identifying jurisdictional capture and whether insurance contracts are involved.

We advise on product design and policy wording, and associated regulatory and compliance requirements.

We also help clients who are concerned about potential regulatory breaches.

Risk management and advisory

With our insurance and claims experience, we provide practical risk management and due diligence advice.

We work closely with our clients, advising on contractual liability and risk allocation, providing no-nonsense advice on how to avoid or limit potential claims and liability. We provide insurance audits and can help clients meet their regulatory and compliance obligations.

Work Highlights

Liability claims

We work on claims across all product lines including cyber, privacy and data security, defamation, directors and officers liability, employers liability, fidelity/crime, professional liability, public and product liability and statutory liability.

Our team is regularly appointed by insurers to act for their insureds in civil, regulatory and disciplinary proceedings.

We have acted on a number of complex, international multi-claimant product liability disputes.

Life insurance

We advise insurers and insureds on claims, policy wording, and coverage issues.

We acted for Fidelity Life on its $145 million acquisition of the life insurance business of TOWER.

Health insurance

We act for a number of health insurers including nib and UniMed on corporate and regulatory matters, as well as policy wording and indemnity advice. We have also advised on acquiring various books of health policies.

We acted for nib on its recent $45 million acquisition of Kiwi Group Holding Limited’s life insurance business and on its licensing and financial advice arrangements. We also acted for nib on its acquisition of travel insurance distributor OrbitProtect and on its acquisitions of TOWER Medical Insurance and the OnePath Life (NZ) Limited health business.

Insureds

Acting for a number of local authorities and local and international commercial clients on significant insurance claims, including claims against their insurers or brokers and significant MD and BI claims arising from the Canterbury earthquakes and Cyclone Gabrielle.

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