New Year’s wishes

I trust all readers have had a meri Kirihimete and are looking forward to a happy new year in 2023. And as it is indeed the new year, and an election year at that, it seems appropriate to set out some policy resolutions and place them respectfully in front of our politicians in the hope that they might take them up.  

• DO prioritise investment in building resilience to climate change and make it clearer for consenting authorities to make the right decisions.
• DO make climate adaptation a policy priority.
• DO support insurance to do its job of signalling risk to avoid undesirable consequences.
• DO remember transferring risk to insurance does not reduce the risk.
• DO promote ways to close the huge cyber protection gap for Aotearoa New Zealand’s small businesses.  
• DO consider the costs and benefit trade-offs before embarking on further change for the insurance sector.
• DO reflect on what it means for insurance affordability when about half the cost of house insurance is made up of levies and taxes.
• DO act proportionately based on evidence to support your actions.
• DO acknowledge that many of the big risks everyone faces will require the public and private sectors to work more closely together.
• DO take time to understand the complexity of the sector’s distribution models; we’re quite different to banking.
• DO make tax-funded science outcomes freely available to inform resilience decision-making.
• DO ensure better coordination of legislative and regulatory consultation.
• DO allow sufficient time for quality consultation because the results are better for New Zealand.
• DO take a long view of risk management (looking out beyond 50 years or more).
• DO appreciate that we are one of the riskiest countries in the world, so it’s important to be an attractive destination for risk capital.

In the spirit of the new year, care has been taken to keep to the Dos and avoid the Don’ts. But there is just one Don’t that deserves a mention. Don’t build in dumb places.

Happy new year.