Sport and recreation injury statistics
Find statistics on injury claims for injuries that happened while playing sport.
- 2020 injury costs.
- 2020 new and active claims.
- Sports claims and costs by year - 2015 to 2019.
- New sport injury claims by common team sports - 2018, 2019, and 2020.
- New sport injury claims by individual sports - 2018, 2019, and 2020.
- Claims for most common sports for 2019 and 2020, by sex.
- Regional breakdown of sports claims.
- Common types of injuries for sport.
- Caveats to this data.
New claims
Active claims
Sports claims and costs by year
| Year | New claims | Active claims | Cost of active claims |
| 2015 | 487,869 | 548,617 | $508,725,581 |
| 2016 | 499,486 | 566,942 | $542,453,421 |
| 2017 | 484,547 | 554,515 | $569,493,431 |
| 2018 | 467,869 | 546,055 | $611,443,451 |
| 2019 | 455,295 | 537,092 | $620,060,321 |
Regional breakdown of sports claims
Did you know – Canterbury has the second-highest number of claims relating to rugby?
Common types of injuries for sport
Did you know – the most common sports injury is a soft tissue injury? It's an injury to the muscle, ligament, or tendons, usually from a sprain, strain, or contusion.
More information
Find out about the work we're involved in to prevent injuries while playing sport:
'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.