Sport and recreation injury statistics

waka ama

Sport and recreation injury statistics

Find statistics on injury claims for injuries that happened while playing sport.

Year to date data: 1 January 2025 to 30 September 2025

  • 2025 ytd injury costs
  • 2025 ytd new and active claims
  • Sports claims and costs by year from 2016 to 2025 ytd
  • New sport injury claims by common team sports and individual sports for the years 2023, 2024 and 2025 ytd
  • Regional breakdown of sports claims
  • Caveats to this data
2025 ytd injury cost
$799,799,574
The costs of all active claims in 2025 ytd

New claims

389,548
in 2025 ytd

Active claims

487,647
in 2025 ytd

Sports claims and costs by year

Year New claims Active claims Cost of active claims
2016 501,749 569,354 $544,776,828
2017 486,583 556,555 $571,957,603
2018 468,226 547,209 $612,890,155
2019 455,350 537,427 $621,455,052
2020 402,800 486,283 $633,384,636
2021 418,141 507,546 $694,658,131
2022 421,611 502,067 $731,857,332
2023 452,886 539,961 $839,160,100
2024  487,004 585,098 $1,007,717,196
2025 ytd 389,548 487,647 $799,799,574

 

By common team sports

{{ chart }}

By individual sports

{{ chart }}

Regional breakdown of sports claims

Did you know – Canterbury has the second-highest number of claims relating to rugby?

Get statistics for individual sports by region

More information

Find out about the work we're involved in to prevent injuries while playing sport:

Injury-free sport and recreation

  • A calendar year is 1 January to 31 December.
  • 'New' claims are counted in the calendar year they were lodged.
  • 'Active' claims have had a payment made on them during that year. Active claims may have been lodged in a different calendar year and can be counted across multiple years.
  • 'Costs' don't include payments made for acute treatment in public hospitals.
  • A client's age may differ between lodgement date and accident date.
  • 'Region' is based on where the accident happened.
  • The data was extracted at a point in time and may change if re-run later.