The NZILA annual lecture series is designed to provide members with a forum to hear from leading insurance law academics and senior practitioners from New Zealand and overseas on a range of topics of interest. A list of past speakers and their topics follows below.
The lecture series was founded in 2016. In 2020 the series was placed in recess due to COVID disruption. In 2025 NZILA is proud to re-launch the series with a view to it being held again each year.
2026 Lecture Series
This address examines the challenges that litigants in person present within legal proceedings, and the responsibilities of the profession in ensuring their effective inclusion. These challenges are evolving as unrepresented parties increasingly use generative AI to produce submissions, which may appear sophisticated on the face, but contain error and confusion.
The common response is to point to pro bono. While pro bono has its place, it can only ever be part of the response and is not the focus of this address. Instead, I argue that more fundamental shifts in everyday legal practice are required. Drawing on over a decade of research into access to justice and the experiences of litigants in person, I will identify practical ways in which lawyers can better understand and respond to these challenges, including the growing presence of AI-assisted advocacy.
Speaker: Bridgette Toy-Cronin
Associate Professor Bridgette Toy-Cronin is the Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Otago. A graduate of the University of Auckland (LLB(Hons) & BA), Harvard University (LLM) and the University of Otago (PhD), her research focuses on access to justice, with a particular emphasis on the experiences of litigants in person and the civil justice system. Before moving into academia, she practiced in civil litigation in both New Zealand and Australia.
2025 Lecture Series
Simon Ladd, Barrister at Shortland Chambers – Climate litigation and the development of private law claims after Smith v Fonterra
In Smith v Fonterra [2024] NZSC 5, the Supreme Court allowed Mr Smith’s appeal and reinstated claims against seven emitters in public nuisance, negligence and a proposed climate system damage tort, concluding that “In this area, the common law must develop, if at all, in the fertile fields of trial, not on the barren rocks of a strike out application.” In this lecture, Simon considers how overseas, and New Zealand common law courts are responding to climate litigation claims against private actors; where the fertile ground and barren rocks may be for plaintiffs and defendants; and the implications of Smith for the development of climate litigation in New Zealand.
2019 Lecture Series
Dr Aysegul Bugra, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey – Collection and Processing of Personal Data in Insurance: New Practices & Challenges
This presentation seeked to give an overview of the instruments limiting the insurers’ right of access and use of personal data for the assessment of the risk, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); Council of Europe (CoE) Recommendation on the Processing of Health-Related Data for Insurance Purposes; relevant codes of practice and soft law materials. The potential implications of the insurance contract law on the access and processing of data by underwriters was also considered, together with the position under New Zealand law.
2018 Lecture Series
The 2018 Lecture Series had Professor Rob Merkin discussing Can the assured’s conduct defeat a claim covering fraud within the claims process, criminality and negligent / reckless acts.
Auckland 5th March
Christchurch 6th March
Wellington 12th March
Scenario
Presentation
Judgement
2017 Lecture Series
Neil Campbell QC, Shortland Chambers – Inherent Vice: Limits and Tensions
Neil discussed exclusions for inherent vice (broadly conceived, including matters such as defective workmanship or design). Such exclusions are a common source of dispute between insureds and insurers, and have been the subject of recent appellate decisions overseas.
Neil Campbell – Inherent vice presentation
Christchurch 6th March
Wellington 7th March
Auckland 8th March
2016 Lecture Series
The inaugural NZILA Lecture Series was held in March at venues in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland.
Professor Ian Enright, of the University of Technology, Sydney presented a learned and engaging discussion on the influences of certain pioneers on the development of the fundamental insurance principles under the heading “The Insurance Social Contract : 1788 and all that“. He also considered recent developments in the area of disclosure of utmost good faith, contract certainty and misconduct. Ian made some predictions and recommendations about the approach the law should take.