If your insurance broking business provides a FAS to retail clients, it will be a FAP and it will need to be licensed under the new Bill.

Welcome to the alphabet soup of the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill. This Bill if enacted will:

• Repeal the unloved Financial Advisers Act 2008,
• Amend the existing Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 to include the new financial adviser regulatory regime, and
• Amend the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008 to accommodate these changes and to eliminate overseas abuse of the Financial Service Providers Register.

Parliament is likely to pass the Bill into law later this year, but it will not go live until the Code of Conduct is finalised. Once it goes live, the FMA will issue transitional licences over a two-year period. After this period expires, the new regime will come into full force. [Read more…]

Can an exclusion in a liability policy that only applies to part of a claim still exclude the whole claim because of the definition of ‘Claim’ and the way the third party has pleaded its claim against the insured?

 
Background
The owners of an apartment block suffering from weather-tightness issues are suing the Napier City Council.

The owners plead in their statement of claim one cause of action only in negligence (breach of duty of care by the Council in performing its regulatory functions). In turn, they plead this led to multiple defects in the building.

Many of the defects relate to weather-tightness issues, but some do not [Read more…]

When are the terms of an insurance policy created?

Background
Several weeks before a client’s policy with its existing underwriter was due to expire, an insurance broker trades emails and phone calls with an alternative underwriter about placing the expiring client’s policy with that alternative underwriter.

The insurance broker and the alternative underwriter agree the key terms of cover. While they agree the start date of the replacement cover, they never discuss the start time on that day. However, they do agree that the new underwriter would go on risk from expiry of the client’s existing policy, as is usual. [Read more…]

The efforts of the United States of America to extradite Kim Dotcom and three other Megaupload executives have been a hot topic in the media for some six years now. Yet, for all this publicity, comparatively little light has been shed on the intricate legal issues at stake, which have implications well beyond the current case, not only for the law of extradition but also for copyright law including the liability of Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) for copyright infringement.

In February, the Court of Appeal heard an appeal by the four extradition respondents in what are generically known as the Dotcom proceedings. They have appealed against findings of the District Court, confirmed by the High Court, that they are “eligible for surrender” to the United States in order to face trial for charges arising out of alleged criminal copyright infringement. [Read more…]

English High Court Clarifies Brokers’ Duties to Clients

In New Zealand, England remains the primary source of court cases about insurance brokers’ duties. In this newsletter, we consider a recent English High Court case about insurance brokers’ duties of care to their clients, and the activities they must undertake to comply with those duties.

While English court cases do not bind New Zealand courts, they remain highly influential, particularly given the lack of cases on this area of the law in New Zealand. [Read more…]