Customer groups

Several cover options give your clients the best combination of benefits to suit their specific needs. To help you choose the right product for your client, we’ve shown how ACC defines each client group and outlined the cover options appropriate to them:

Self-employed

Your client is classified as self-employed if they:

work as a sole trader
work in a partnersh ip
receive scheduler (withholding) payments.

For the purpose of calculating lost earnings compensation, paid in the event of an injury to your client, we classify self-employed clients into these three groups:

Self-employed clients will be classified as…	if in their length of time in business…
newly self-employed	no tax balance date has been passed
recently self-employed	only one tax balance date has been passed
established self-employed	two or more tax balance dates have been passed

How full-time/part-time is determined

Self-employed people are classified as full-time if they work:

More than 30 hours per week over a full tax year
An average of 30 hours per week over the four weeks prior to an injury.

Part-time self-employed people are clients who work less than 30 hours on average per week over a tax year.

Cover and discount options for self-employed clients

ACC CoverPlus

ACC CoverPlus Extra (also available to part-time self-employed people and seasonal workers if they earn over the minimum)

ACC Workplace Safety Discounts (certain industries only)

ACC Workplace Safety Management Practices (best suited to self-employed employers)

ACC TimeOut

Partner

Partners can classify their business activity for ACC purposes based on what they do for the partnership rather than on the partnership’s main business activity.
The ACC cover options and discount programmes available to them are:

ACC CoverPlus (also available to part-time self-employed people and seasonal workers if they earn over the minimum)

ACC Workplace Safety Discounts (certain industries only)

ACC Workplace Safety Management Practices (best suited to self-employed employers)

ACC TimeOut

Mixed earner

Your client is a mixed earner if their income is made up of both self-employed and employee earnings.
The ACC cover options and discount programmes available to mixed earners are:

ACC CoverPlus

ACC CoverPlus Extra (only available to part-time self-employed people and seasonal workers if they earn over the minimum)

ACC Workplace Safety Discounts (certain industries only)

ACC Workplace Safety Management Practices (best suited to self-employed employers)

ACC TimeOut

Sharemilker

Sharemilkers are classified as self-employed if they operate under a standard sharemilking agreement. This applies whether they work on a 50/50 basis or less.
The ACC cover options and discount programmes available to sharemilkers are:

ACC CoverPlus

ACC CoverPlus Extra (only available to part-time self-employed people and seasonal workers if they earn over the minimum)

ACC Workplace Safety Discounts (certain industries only)

ACC Workplace Safety Management Practices (best suited to self-employed employers)

ACC TimeOut

Private domestic worker

A private domestic worker is a person who works for another person (an employer) in the employer’s home or garden. For someone to be a private domestic worker the:

house or garden must be used exclusively for residential purposes
work must not be related to the employer’s business
work for the employer must not be regular full-time work (full-time work is on average at least 30 hours per week)
employer must not be making tax deductions for the worker (eg PAYE deductions). The worker is required to pay PAYE directly to Inland Revenue.

A worker can be classified as a private domestic worker if they work for more than 30 hours per week in that occupation, but this employment needs to be with more than one employer and they cannot work for any one of those employers for more than 30 hours.

The cover options and discount programmes available to private domestic workers are:

ACC Workplace Safety Management Practices

ACC TimeOut

Employee

A client is likely to be an employee if they are working for salary or wages from an employer.

Their employer pays for their workplace injury cover (ACC WorkPlace Cover) and the employee pays for cover for non-work injuries through PAYE.

An additional cover option for employees is ACC TimeOut.

Self-employed employer

Self-employed employers are customers who are registered with Inland Revenue both as employers and as self-employed.

The ACC cover options and discount programmes available to them are:

ACC WorkPlace Cover (to cover their employees’ work injuries)

ACC CoverPlus or ACC CoverPlus Extra (to cover their own work and non-work injuries)

ACC Workplace Safety Management Practices and ACC Workplace Safety Discounts, which both offer levy discounts in return for a safer workplace

ACC Partnership Programme, which allows employers to self-manage their workplace injuries.

Employer

An employer is responsible for paying salary or wages to one or more employees.

In addition, all employers are required to pay levies to fund personal workplace injury cover for their employees. This cover is called ACC Work Place Cover.

The ACC cover options and discount programmes available to them are:

ACC WorkPlace Cover (to cover their employees’ work injuries)

ACC CoverPlus or ACC CoverPlus Extra (to cover their own work and non-work injuries)

ACC Workplace Safety Management Practices and ACC Workplace Safety Discounts, which both offer levy discounts in return for a safer workplace

ACC Partnership Programme, which allows employers to self-manage their workplace injuries.

Shareholder-employee

A client is classified as a shareholder-employee if they are both a shareholder and an employee of a company.

There are two types of shareholder-employees:

PAYE shareholder-employee – The shareholder of a company who pays the shareholder-employee and deducts PAYE.
Non-PAYE shareholder-employee – The shareholder of a company who is not paid a PAYE salary.

PAYE shareholder-employee

A PAYE shareholder-employee is paid a regular salary from which PAYE is deducted. Their ACC levy is paid as part of their PAYE, and for compensation purposes they are treated similarly to employees.

The cover options and discount programmes available to PAYE shareholder-employees include:

ACC WorkPlace Cover

ACC Workplace Safety Discounts (certain industries only)

ACC Workplace Safety Management Practices

ACC TimeOut

Non-PAYE shareholder-employee

Similarly to self-employed people, we classify non-PAYE shareholder-employees into three groups, as shown below. This classification is used to help calculate the lost earnings compensation paid in the event of an injury to your client.

Shareholder-employees will be classified as a…	if in their length of time in business…
new shareholder-employee	no tax balance date has been passed
recent shareholder-employee	only one tax balance date has been passed
established shareholder-employee	two or more tax balance dates have been passed