Insurance claims: limitation of actions

In Pearce and Another v Toka Tū Ake Natural Hazards Commission and Another [2025] NZHC 623; [2025] Lloyd's Rep IR Plus 25, Osborne J in the New Zealand High Court has challenged the accepted orthodoxy that the limitation period for an insurance claim runs from the date of the insured peril rather than the date on which the claim was denied or should have been paid. The case ultimately turned on the express wording of the policy and the New Zealand regime of state insurance for natural catastrophes, but the court chose to go much further.

Pearce: the insurance