Ina Iyer

Full Profile

Ina joined the Johannesburg office in 2015 and was promoted to legal director in 2018 and partner in 2022. 

Ina heads up the Property/Assets Practice Group in Johannesburg. This is her core focus and practice area, together with public liability and life insurance matters. 

She advises various insurance clients (primarily commercial business insurers and their underwriting management agents) in policy interpretation and policy response, subrogated recoveries and defences and litigious disputes with policyholders. 

Ina was recently recognised in Best Lawyers in South Africa 2022.

Experience

• Advising an insurer on policy response in an action for Constitutional and delictual damages against its insureds exceeding R30 billion.
• Pursuing a subrogated recovery action relating to a crane collapse incident leading to material damage and business interruption losses for an insured landlord and its tenant, exceeding R17 million.
• Defending a life insurer in an action by the beneficiaries of a life policy, in circumstances where their claim was rejected owing to the deceased’s death being through natural causes (excluded from cover) as opposed to accidental causes (included in the cover).
• Defending several insurers in relation to actions instituted against them by insureds for motor claims which were rejected on account of the insureds’ breach of the reasonable precautions clause in their policies, on account of speeding. 
• Advising an insurer on the merits of numerous third party approaches made to its insured in relation to a veld fire which spread from the insured’s tenanted premises. 
• Advising an insurer on its liability to its insured following the accidental destruction of the insured’s home whilst undergoing minor repairs by the insurer’s agent, and on pursuing a recovery against the agent. 
• Defending an insurer in an action against it by its insured for business interruption losses following damage to heat exchangers at a solar power plant.
• Successfully pursuing a subrogated recovery action against a state-owned company for damage to a construction company’s works during the course of repairs by the state-owned company of a water pipe.
• Defending an insurer in an action by it against its insureds following a fire claim, which was rejected on account of breach of warranty.
• Advising a predominant short-term insurer on its suite of commercial policies for purposes of identifying significant exposures in various categories of risk such as extreme weather events, infrastructure failures and infectious and contagious diseases.