Sparkes shares thoughts on a shifting landscape

Sparke Helmore Lawyers is proud to share Australasian Lawyer’s Insurance Law Special, released today. We are delighted to be a sponsor of this special report, which features in Australasian Lawyer as well as in Insurance Business AU and will go out to all subscribers of both key publications.

The report brings together a selection of leading insurance specialists from leading law firms—Sparkes’ Commercial Insurance National Practice Group Leader Chris Wood, Carter Newell Lawyers Managing Partner Paul Hopkins, and Holman Webb Lawyers Partner John Van de Poll—to share their insights on the current and future insurance market, particularly in a post-Hayne world.

Chris sets the scene with his commentary around Australia being in the midst of volatile times with hardening global markets and the renewed focus on “doing the right thing” following the Hayne Royal Commission. The regulatory and societal scrutiny—combined with the fast pace of change in technology, customer behaviour and cybercrime—has put the local insurance industry under unprecedented pressure and constraints.

Chris also highlights three particularly pressing issues for the local industry:

• the construction boom, including the rising incidence of building failures such as non-compliant cladding
• issues in the directors and officers, and financial lines space, with litigation coming out of the royal commission’s findings, bringing a record number of class actions and “event-based” claims, and
• the increasing frequency of climate-driven disasters.

As Chris points out, unsurprisingly, climate change is the biggest issue of them all. Reinsurers have been sounding the alarm for many years and, anecdotally, it is a standing agenda item for all major players.

For anyone in the insurance industry (lawyers, brokers, or anyone else), this report is a must-read. Click here to view the report on the Australasian Lawyer website.