People contact us on a daily basis seeking statistics for injuries suffered by New Zealanders as they live, work and play.
Access to statistics
Below is a selection of facts and statistics that we are most commonly asked for. Unless otherwise indicated, these statistics refer to New Zealand. If you can’t find the statistics you are looking for, try our Statistics page or email statistics@acc.co.nz.
Please note that our figures may differ from those held by the Department of Labour because we only collect statistics for injuries or fatalities for which a claim was lodged with us.
Fast facts on ACC
- Everyone in New Zealand is entitled to seek help from ACC if they are injured – no matter what age they are or whether they are working or not.
- ACC can provide lost earnings compensation of up to 80% of a client’s normal weekly wage if they are off work for more than one week when recovering from an accident.
- ACC can help:
- even if a New Zealander injures themselves on holiday overseas – as long as they are a New Zealand resident and haven’t been out of New Zealand for more than six months
- visitors to New Zealand if they are hurt in an accident while they are in the country
- people who have been injured on the sports field, in falls or other accidents at home, accidents at work and road accidents
- ACC can cover the cost of emergency transport, emergency hospital services, doctors’ visits and a wide range of treatments including dentistry, physiotherapy and acupuncture.
- ACC may also pay for:
- elective surgery and help in managing different aspects of treatment and rehabilitation throughout your recovery
- services such as home help and travel to treatment
- training for future employment when people can’t keep working in their old job because of their injury.
Claims, Services, Payments and Levies for 2007/2008
Claims processed in 2007/2008
This year ACC:
- received an injury claim on average every 17 seconds
- processed 1.8 million new claims, which is 41 claims for every 100 New Zealanders
- had 2700 staff at 48 locations around New Zealand.
On a daily basis we:
- sent 25,000 letters to clients, levy payers and health providers
- answered more than 24,000 telephone calls
- dealt with 7,000 claims.
Services paid for by ACC in 2007/2008
ACC’s total expenditure for 2007/08 was $3.181 billion. That includes paying for rehabilitation, compensation, administration, injury prevention programmes, levy collection, etc.
This included $2.72 billion spent on services, including:
- medical treatment – $512 million
- hospital treatment – $199.3 million
- public health acute services (accident and emergency) – $352 million
- dental treatments – $25.4 million
- vocational rehabilitation (helping injured people back into work) – $53.5 million
- social rehabilitation (helping injured people learn to live with their injury, including home help or home modifications) – $438.9 million
- travel to treatment – $62.8 million.
Among the services that we funded were:
- 3.3 million visits to physiotherapists
- 2.7 million visits to GPs
- 2.7 million visits to other treatment providers
- 248,000 sessions of vocational rehabilitation
- 2.4 million occasions of social rehabilitation.
Levies collected in 2007/2008
ACC collected $3.652 billion in levies to pay for rehabilitation, compensation and administration costs. This does not include the $863,343,000 the Government pays into the Non-Earners account, to cover the injuries of non-working New Zealanders and tourists.
Rehabilitation rates and costs
In 2007/08, 64.6% of injured people returned to productive life within three months, while 82.3% were back at work within six months.
Longer-term, 91.6% of people successfully completed their rehabilitation and returned to work within a year.
In comparison, in 1998 it took one year before 87% of people with serious injuries returned to work.
Money spent on social rehabilitation
In 2007/08, ACC spent $438.9 million on social rehabilitation. This means supporting people who have had life-changing injuries and helping them learn how to live day to day with their injuries. That might be, for example, through home help or paying to modify their homes or vehicles.
Money spent on injury prevention
In 2007/08 ACC spent $39.8 million on injury prevention. Our over-arching goal is to make New Zealand injury-free, so injury prevention is an important focus for us. That’s why spending on safety programmes for the roads, workplace, home and sport is money well-spent.
Injuries from falls
Falls are the leading cause of injury hospitalisation and one of the leading causes of injury death in New Zealand. Slips, trips and falls account for about 40% of unintentional injury hospitalisations and 20% of unintentional injury deaths.
The most common place for this to happen is at home.
In 2007/08 falls were the cause of 446 deaths and 48,417 injuries. New Zealanders aged over 65 have a one in three chance of having a fall each year; once they’re 80 that increases to one in two, or even higher if they live in a rest home.
Caring for New Zealanders aged 65 and over who have been injured in falls costs around $60 million each year.
Injuries at home
One in three injuries (31% of entitlement claims, 40% of all claims) occurs in the home, making it the most common place for injuries to happen.
- In 2007/08, 715,218 claims were made for home injuries – that equates to one in seven New Zealanders making a claim for a home injury last year, or a home injury claim received every 44 seconds.
- Slips, trips and falls make up more than 52% entitlement claims (40% all claims) of all home injury claims and each year cost around $293 million in treatment and rehabilitation.
Last year ACC received:
- 10,149 claims involving an electrical or gas appliance
- 1,287 claims involving a electric socket, plug or wiring
- 515 claims involving a food processing machine
- 44,485 claims involving fixed stairs or steps.
On average, every year in New Zealand:
- about 36,000 injuries at home require hospitalisation
- injuries at home lead to 595 deaths.
Children’s injuries
New Zealand children are twice as likely to die through injury as children who live in Australia, and three times as likely as a child from England or Wales. Each year, over 3,500 children suffer moderate to severe injuries, and one child dies from their injuries every five days on average.
- Motor vehicles are the number one killer of children, accounting for 1 in 5 child fatalities.
- New Zealand is third from the bottom in the OECD for transport injury death rates for children. Our average rate is 3.6 children killed on the roads per 100,000 people, compared to the OECD average of 4.8 children killed.
- Properly used child restraints and safety belts reduce the risk of death in a vehicle crash by 71% and serious injury by 67%.
- In the last year 37 children aged younger than 15 years died in the home – primarily in falls.
- Falls in the home are also the most common cause of injuries to children.
Work injuries
In 2007/08 119 people were killed, and more than 37,700 people were injured on the job severely enough to be off work for more than a week. Overall, 285,400 people suffered some kind of injury at work out of a total workforce of 2.26 million people.
Work-related entitlement claims by industry (XLS 28K)
Fatal work-related claims by industry (XLS 14K)
Road crash injuries
In 2007/08 ACC dealt with 14,768 claims for road crash injuries. 6,077 of those were new claims, while 8,691 were from people who were still coping with older road crash injuries. The total cost of road crash injuries for that year was $336.1 million.
The total social cost of road crashes is estimated to be $3.5 billion a year to health services and the community.
Driver fatigue is estimated to have contributed to 13% of fatal road crashes in 2007.
Entitlement claims for road injuries by location (XLS 14K)
Fatal road injuries by location (XLS 14K)
Sport and leisure injuries
Almost 26,500 New Zealanders were injured playing sport, and 108 died as a result of their injuries in 2007/08.
Entitlement claims by sport played (XLS 17K)
Fatal claims by sport played (XLS 15K)
Farm injuries
4,256 New Zealanders were injured on farms in 2007/08, while 28 died as a result of their injuries.
Entitlement claims – Farm by injury (XLS 19K)
Fatal – Farm by injury (XLS 28K)
Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL)
ACC received 4,865 new claims for Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL), which can also been known as industrial or occupational deafness. Overall, in 2007/08 we helped 32,287 New Zealanders deal with NIHL at a total cost of $49.9 million.
Entitlement claims for NIHL by industry (XLS 14K)
Last updated: 2 November 2010
