Colinvaux's Law of Insurance in New Zealand (3rd edition)

Colinvaux’s Law of Insurance was published in December 2014 as the first major insurance law treatise in New Zealand.  Drawing from the Sweet & Maxwell title of the same name but tailored to the distinctive New Zealand jurisdiction, it launched with an established reputation and expert authors into a climate where insurance practitioners require accessible analysis and guidance faster than ever. A second edition was published in 2017.

The new, third, edition encompasses the major legislative changes to New Zealand law introduce by the Contracts of Insurance Act 2024, the Contracts of Insurance (Repeals and Amendments) Act 2024 and the Natural Hazards Insurance Act 2023. These measures have repealed the vast bulk of New Zealand’s insurance law legislation and has replaced it with a series of new principles derived from UK and Australian legislation as well as consolidating and updating earlier measures. Colinvaux seeks to weave the legislative changes into existing principles to demonstrate how the law has changed and is likely to develop. The experiences of UK and Australia are key to an understanding of the 2024 Acts and are discussed in full. The key changes relate to: presentation of the risk; the utmost good faith principle; damages for late payment of insurance claims; late notification under claims made liability policies and the insolvency of policyholders facing claims from third parties.

Independently of the legislative changes, and as with previous editions, Colinvaux continues to draw on Australian, United Kingdom and Canadian case law on issues unaffected by statute. A key additional feature is extensive analysis of business interruption insurance, the operation of which has come to the fore as a result of the mass of claims generated by losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Other matters on which there have been important decisions include: the interpretation of policy terms; the operation of subrogation and double insurance; the duties of brokers and other intermediaries; the scope of liability policies; and the meaning of “damage” for the purposes of property insurance.