Part Fees
The Herald reports:
The Government has confirmed that accident victims may have to pay the first $50 or $100 of their costs.
The move is under consideration as part of a second round of changes to the accident compensation scheme next year.
Accident Compensation Corporation chairman John Judge says requiring victims to pay an insurance-style “excess” of $50 or $100 for each claim would cut ACC costs by about $1.6 billion over the next 10 years, reducing the need for further levy increases.
ACC Minister Nick Smith said he had been briefed on the proposal, but no decision would be made on it until a wide-ranging “stocktake” of the scheme, led by former Labour Finance Minister David Caygill, was completed next July.
“It’s true that there is a very large transaction cost in ACC, with more than 1 million claims a year,” he said.
“The concept [of a $50 or $100 excess] would need to be carefully balanced with regard to low income earners for whom a $50 or $100 excess might prevent them getting medical attention.”
I understand the cost of processing those minor sub $100 claims is greater than the actual claims themselves, so the problem is quite clear.
However it is worth considering more generally the issue of part fees. As a starting point, I consider almost all Govt funded services should have part fees, as you get distorted decision making in their absence.
The prime example of this is the scam tertiary courses which have diverted so much tertiary funding. When the Govt pays 100% of the course costs, then the institution will simply target signing up as many people as possible, and they will sign up if there is no cost.
Now part fees should not be high enough to discourage people who would genuinely benefit from a Government service, and this is a valid concern.
And there are some situations where there should be no part fees at all. For example kids borrowing books from a library is a classic example.
In related news, 93 year old Sir Owen Woodhouse is reported as being upset with changes:
The father of New Zealand’s accident compensation scheme, Sir Owen Woodhouse, says changes announced last week are “uncaring and predatory”.
Sir Owen, 93, says proposals to double and treble levies on heavy motorbikes and mopeds, and to push accident victims back to work on much lower incomes than they earned before their accidents, breach the principles of the scheme he authored as head of a royal commission in 1967.
I think Sir Owen has just shown us the real problem with ACC. He has spoken out against both the increase in levies and the reduction of benefits. Now you can’t have it both ways. It is quite legitimate to say there should be no reduction in benefits, but then you have to accept that that levies will increase to around $45 a week for an average family. But if you do not reduce benefits, then levies have to increase even further. There is no magic pot of gold to fund the scheme.
Sir Owen’s 1967 report proposed a single flat-rate levy on all employers and another flat rate on motorists, on the basis that everyone benefited from the work of people in risky industries such as aerial topdressing.
Sorry, but wrong an unrealistic view. Firstly industries with higher work accidents should cover those costs, so that the prices of those goods or services reflect that.
I own a polling company. Over the last five years my ACC bill has been a large five figure sum. During that time not a single accident has occurred, or claim filed by a staff member. And Sir Owen is saying we should pay even higher ACC levies to cover not just workplace accidents in other clerical type firms, but workplace accidents in freezing works.
Yesterday he disputed claims by ACC Minister Nick Smith that levies needed to reflect different accident rates in different industries and different kinds of vehicles because that would give employers and motorists more incentive to be safe.
“We are saying people are willing to risk killing themselves for the sake of a few dollars of saved premiums. That’s just ridiculous,” he said.
“I think it’s simply shocking that they are proposing to load people on bicycles and this kind of thing with the extra amounts they are talking about.”
Well if you are saying you want less people killed on the roads, then yes the motorcycle premium makes sense as their injury rate is 16 times that of motorists.
Where I do have some sympathy for motorcyclists is if they own multiple bikes. What might be worthwhile is for the Government to look at a system for all vehicle registrations where the first vehicle per person pays the full license fee, while any subsequent vehicles pay a lower fee.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:15 am
The idea of a discounted rate for second and further registrations is a good one. As for Sir Owen’s claim that it is “ridiculous” to infer that “people are willing to risk killing themselves for the sake of a few dollars of saved premiums”, all I can say is that he doesn’t get to observe the real world much, does he?
October 19th, 2009 at 7:22 am
The levy could be reduced across the board if the ACC did not give one often injured sector a free ride.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:28 am
Unfortunately many people believe the gummint has an exhaustable supply of money. Even more unfortunately most of those people seem to be Labour politicians and their supporters. Bit like the morons interviewed in the States queueing up for $250 handout cheques who thought the money came from Obama’s personal stash.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:34 am
The scheme is unsustainable because it sends the wrong message to people. People who chose to undertake hazardous activities such as many sports should have a significant excess on any moneys claimed from ACC. This will get around collecting levies from people who CHOSE to do risky pursuits as recreation. Maybe people in risky jobs could also have an excess. The excess can be balanced by no claim bonuses (which I would get a substantial discount as would many others) The no claim bonuses would be over ALL claims. People who are careful and moderate their claims should be rewarded for their prudence. People who are not can expect higher and higher excess especially in the NON work activity.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Well, yes. That was the deal. That’s pretty much always been the deal. It helps it seem more reasonable if you look at it as not businesses paying the tab, but workers paying it from their pre-tax earnings. If we were to charge workers based on their risk a meaningful majority of them would be substantially screwed over … “I know we said we were paying you $100k to work it this really risky industry, but the government wants 20% extra tax from you to cover your risk under ACC.” The Woodhouse report didn’t recommend compulsory workers employment insurance, it recommend ACC. It was the deal that we were all to pay the same to share the risk. That’s what ACC is and has been in New Zealand.
Plenty of argument against it of course, but what it want isn’t really New Zealand’s ACC scheme, but something else.
Brian, the Government does> have an exhaustible supply of money.
[DPF: Graeme you are confusing two things. The employee levy is a flat rate over all industries. The employer levy has not been a flat rate for at least 20 years if not longer, and depends on the industry. I concede it would be hideously unfair to have clerical firms funding the ACC costs of meat processors]
October 19th, 2009 at 7:45 am
I think a multi tier excess system is worth looking at. Not only will an excess cover some of the costs, it may also discourage a lot of minor claims – I know it happens where people get treatment just because it won’t cost them, otherwise they would just manage.
A lower rate for those on Community Services cards may deal with the lower income issue. $100 to someone on a low wage or a benefit would be a lot out of their budget, but for many (including me) it wouldn’t be a major.
Having higher excess/lower premium would probably get too complex to administer.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:47 am
DPF said: I own a polling company. Over the last five years my ACC bill has been a large five figure sum. During that time not a single accident has occurred, or claim filed by a staff member. And Sir Owen is saying we should pay even higher ACC levies to cover not just workplace accidents in other clerical type firms, but workplace accidents in freezing works.
and:
What might be worthwhile is for the Government to look at a system for all vehicle registrations where the first vehicle per person pays the full license fee, while any subsequent vehicles pay a lower fee.
DPF, you contradict yourself here. In your first statement I quote, you support the risk being apportioned according to where it lies.
In the second, you support the “community responsibility” approach Sir Owen advocates. If you supported the motor vehicle account being funded on the basis of risk, you would have to support the abolition of the motor vehicle levy completely. Even the ACC levy on petrol doesn’t accurately reflect risk, given that different sized vehivles have different fuel cunsumption. To take a purely risk-based approach to vehicle levies, you would have to have every motorist paying a levy based on kilometres travelled, and then add or subtract an exsperience rating based on each motorist’s motor vehicle injury record. Imagine the bureaucracy that would involve.
You use the electricity generated from the coal that is mined at Huntly, and you eat the produce that is grown on New Zealand’s farms – to name two high risk industies. So why should you not bear the cost of the injury risks in those indusries directly? You already bear it anyway as the high levies charged in the mining and farming industries will be passed on. Just taht there is more bureacracy involved in setting individual industry levies, and will be even more bureacracy if individual employer experience rating is introduced, as National propose.
[DPF: I thought you know something about ACC. There already are individual industry levies. Around 1,000 of them. We have had them for decades.
In an ideal world you would impose the levy per km travelled and based on how safe a car is. But that purist model gets too complicated, so we have petrol tax and licence fees as an imperfect substitute.
And you really do not understand how the economy works if you think all costs can be passed on, and that there is no difference between an clerical employer paying higher ACC levies and said employer having the cost of food reflect its true costs]
October 19th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Excuse me – off topic I know – but, where is General Debate this morning please?. Its 7.45 already, and some of us still have an illogical, juvenile and frivolous desire to be first to blog therein. (Again, please pardon this admitedly off-topic comment. Sorry!)
October 19th, 2009 at 7:49 am
statistics, damn lies and statistics. Lets unpick that 16x more likely to be injured than a car driver shall we.
Whats the metric. Is it per trip? or is it injury per 100,000 km travelled? (which is the old stat that Transport used to use). Or is it by person/km?
If the average number of kms per car driver is 15,000kms per year and the average number of kms travelled by bike is 3,000 per year, then you can see how the numbers start to change.
Most bikes are either small commuters (low kms typically) or are a second or third vehicle used on weekends and the summer (low kms again)
For cars 100,000 kms travelled is the average travel of 6.7 motorists. Very few injuries. It is the equivalent average travel of 33.3 motorcyclists. there is part of your statistical difference.
Then lets look at how many bike accidents are caused by careless car drivers.
So while its true that single bike accidents do happen, and clearly bikers get hurt far more in a crash than a car driver does, I suspect the shaping and choosing of the statistics gives you whatever answer you want to get.
My argument is that this is a con job by the safety Nazis who use every opportunity to protect us from motorcycles, despite the real benefits they deliver in fuel efficiency and congestion.
The same people dont seem concerned that pushbikes, skiers, jet skiers rugby players are all injured by their leisure activities, but motorists have to subsidise them. This is the same system that lets frauds and charlatans claim for bad backs, “recovered” sexual abuse (did you see the ACC ads in the Herald on Saturday inviting new claimants to come forward), and physiotherapy.
Time to go ACC.
License me personally, based on my risk. I will happily take the opt-out provision.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:52 am
wow the edit function is scrolling all over the place. This is an edit of my last line.
License me personally, LICENSE ME ONCE, based on my risk. I will happily take the opt out provision.
The biggest inequity of all in ACC is that you make me pay for multiple vehicles when I can actually operate only one at a time. Most bikers own more than one bike. Most use them as second or third vehicles. We are already subsidising other users.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:53 am
Do employers pay ACC? Or do they just forward to the government ACC paid by their workers?
Seriously asking. I had thought it was the latter. Is it both?
[DPF: Both.]
October 19th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Frankly, I find it unbelievable to have this discussion at all. If one would need better arguments to privatize the thing they are: 1) the ‘solutions’ now sought to ‘improve’ it, are in fact weak substitutes for what otherwise the market would provide completely automatically, namely premiums related to risk and level of excess people are prepared to accept (i.e. own responsibility)
2) the absolute nutcase comments by Woodhouse, the ‘architect’ of the scheme. These remarks are proof again of the demented sort of social engineering thinking that underpins this ridiculous system of healthcare welfare and state intervention in individual liability.
The real solution is simple, but requires more balls than the current lot has got: 1)privatize ACC, and 2) re-introduce fault and liability 3) Improve the court system immensely so it can deal effectively with the enormous increase in litigation 4) introduce tort reform with proper capping.
There’s quite a bit of detail to sort out, but nothing impossible
October 19th, 2009 at 7:57 am
@Toad: the mechanism to achieve precisely what you are looking for is called price and markets and it works great as long as bureaucrats and zealots like yourself don’t interfere with their sticky fingers.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Oh God Toad weighs in.
Yes just imagine the bureacracy involved in allocating and pricing risk on an individual basis.
Why it might take, oh, 2 people and a computer programme.
Bwuhahaha.
In toads world insurance companies have to employ hundreds of bureacrats to painstakingly work out your individual risk. Perhaps their abacuses and pencils would overheat if this was extended to ACC? and who would pay them 80% of their earnings to recover then?
Reason # 14356 why the Greens should never, ever, be allowed close to an actual responsible job.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:08 am
I’m not sure of the 16X of Motorcycles either.
1. they don’t have the protection of cars so the risk to person must be higher.
2. what are the stats as to road conditions (ice, wet) or their fault or other road users fault to accidents?
3. is their experience/stats comparable with Bikes
we probably don’t keep accurate stats as police too busy in prioritising their workload.
Just making out their risk is higher therefore they should pay for it doesn’t wash with me as I’ve seen plenty of shit drivers on the road let alone the cars with dents etc etc.
I don’t own or ride a m/Bike though I do occasionally ride a pushbike (don’t wear lycra!) so would be interested in the relationships to the figures.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:11 am
“Do employers pay ACC? Or do they just forward to the government ACC paid by their workers?”
Yes, employers pay ACC, as do employees. In fact, if my memory serves me, the employee amount came later – there was always an employer levy.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:27 am
ACC may indeed have a “no-fault” ethos. But that does not absolve the government, health professionals, businesses and individuals from RESPONSIBILITY. ACC in its present form is unsustainable, and successive governments (but most notably the Clark government) have widened the scope for entitlements far beyond what Woodhouse ever intended. Opening the work account to competition seems to be a sensible first step.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Dismantle ACC. The only thing user pays does is ensures that Labor scum can then make election promises of “free” government services which the sheep duly lap up. Dismantle ACC it is a failure.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Employees pay 1.7% of their gross pay up to $106473 earnings – so if you earn $106473 you pay the maximum of 1810.04, if you earn 50k it is $850. Add to that what you pay for vehicle levy and that is your personal premium.
The employer pays based on their industry risk.
ACC levies:
http://www.acc.co.nz/for-business/tax-agents-accountants-and-advisors/levies-and-invoicing/BUS00078
October 19th, 2009 at 8:54 am
I thought this was the worst part:
Sir Owen said he saw the scheme as part of the social welfare system, not as an “insurance” scheme
Clearly Labour is right then – it is a welfare and not an accident insurance scheme.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Sir Owen dear old soul has absolutely no idea about economics. He thinks the world has infinite resources and that people will pay an unlimited amount in taxes and levies to fund his elegant theoretical dream.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:03 am
ACC is both accident insurance (employee, employer and vehicle levies) and welfare (the government pays for those who aren’t employed).
October 19th, 2009 at 9:18 am
User pay’s. A logical system in our “democratic” system.
But we shall not have double standards here.
If the worst offending companies are to pay higher pemium’s and reflect this cost in there product and service price’s then we should have a single stanard.
I would expect to see the same system used in the emitions trading sceme, the worst offenders should also pay and reflect there costs in there serfvice’s and products.(maori or other ethnically run business)
Also there should be a callories tax, make chocolate and oil etc very expensice bassed purely on calories per gram. Over weight people would i believe cost as much if not even more than smoker’s rugby players, sky divers, motor cyclists, pig hunters and fire breathers combined.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Everyone seems to agree that ACC is in a stinking pile of shit, who is responsible for it and why is no one being brought to task? I don’t see any restructuring of the corporation itself, is this a case of “no fault” by ACC? Tui.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:34 am
David, while your idea of multiple ownership of motorcycles or vehicles attracting a sliding scale of premiums has superficial merit, it would be an invitation for people to game the system. I can imagine that Hell’s Angels would be quick to move all their bikes into a common ownership and share the savings of lower premiums just to think of one example. Probably the better idea would be to up the premium implicit in fuel and charge annually on a licence basis.
Although I may have second thoughts about that if I had to pay extra for the privilege of licences held but not used for years (articulated vehicle, heavy trailer, heavy truck, self-laying tracks etc)
October 19th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Woodhouse is upset about the cuts and levies increases???
I noted in a post the other day, that if you can get the chance to read his original report to do so. What we have now is seriously different from what he set out in the original report.
Entitlements have grown so much more than the original report had outlined and that is why we are facing the cuts or levy raises. On the whole I think ACC does a good job, and that it’s a good idea. Shame that previous Labour governments have used it as a social policy tool not and what it was intended for.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:46 am
If players and participants of sports like rugby, mountain biking and snow boarding had to pay their own way the sports would cease to exist. The government will not of course move to fix this as it would stuff those sports. It would be easy to collect levies in some cases – eg a levy on ski lift passes.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Ahh. So Sir Owen Woodhouse is fighting a battle he should have fought 20 years ago. I think my general point stands. You think this is an insurance scheme. Woodhouse proposed a welfare scheme to obviate the need for both litigation and insurance.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:56 am
DPF said: I thought you know something about ACC. There already are individual industry levies. Around 1,000 of them. We have had them for decades.
I know that, DPF. What I said was “You already bear it anyway as the high levies charged in the mining and farming industries will be passed on.” which clearly refers to that. Please don’t try to make out I don’t know what I am talking about, when I clearly do.
Just because we have a different political perspectives of ACC doesn’t make one of us knowledgeable and the other ignorant – it just means we have differing political perspectives.
[DPF: You still don't get it. Not everyone is a customer of the meat industry. Why should a vegan owner of a clerical business pay for workplace safety in freezing works?]
October 19th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Hang on, hang on. Let’s say this out loud. We have a no fault accident scheme and you’re suggesting that all victims should be required to pay a surcharge. So much for victim support, eh. Victims of crime, good. Victims of work-related injury, bad.
Take, for example, your polling company. While your premiums do not reflect the level of injury in your particular workplace, your business relies completely on a host of more risky professions to do the hard yard. The independent and disposable sub-contractors who install the data links, the electrician to maintain your office circuits. The only reason you are at the apex of the pyramid is on the backs of others. That is what Sir Owen was getting at.
It’s not the big companies who are forced to pay the ACC levies. They are free to opt out. It is the owner operators, the independent contractors, the self-employed who bear the burden. Co-incidentally, it is also this group of payers who have immense problems squeezing a cent out of ACC without copious paperwork, lawyers, and the occasional court appeal.
ACC is unfair and unjust, but not in the way the Nats are selling it to us. Sky City is an excellent injury factory. Due to the mundane, highly regimented and repetitive nature of counting money, casinos spit out crippled RSI workers by the dozen. Golfers suffer similarly with wrist sprains. I don’t see green fees tripling.
It really looks like a screwed scrum from here.
October 19th, 2009 at 10:11 am
How does the non-earners account get funded. The fund for people who are to young, old, incapable or just do not want to work? This must cover half the population. Does it come out of earners premiums? What accounts do levies from petrol excise duties and vehicle registrations go to? This whole ACC and how it is funded is very confusing. However, if we could get the full picture, we could come up with clever solutions to it problems. And oh yes to the Maryanne Street supporters, there are huge problems and I never want you to have access to public finances again, ever!
October 19th, 2009 at 10:13 am
If there are ‘part fees’ then the beneficiary should be able to sue for what he or she had to contribute at the Disputes Tribunal. This is the similar to the ability to sue for an excess when the insurance companies settle ‘knock for knock’. A successful Health and Safety prosecution should also enables a decent ‘top up’ for an injured or killed employee. Same if a driver responsible for injuries is convicted of drink driving, reckless driving or worse. In the latter case a fixed ‘tariff’ would be appropriate to make the amounts unappealable. The objective is to minimise the involvement of lawyers as much as possible (although defendants may more vigourously defend criminal charges requiring more police and Crown Law efforts to nail them to the wall).
October 19th, 2009 at 10:25 am
The Left have a very curious position on ACC compared with the federal bailouts of major corporates.
Their main complaint – and a perfectly correct one – is that corporate bailouts are to be opposed because they have the effect of privatising profits but socialising losses.
That is exactly what ACC does. Sir Owen’s suggestion that low risk industries pay the same rate for ACC as high risk means socialising the losses and privatising the benefits of being in high-risk occupations. The result: exposure of workers to risk that is not justified by the value created, and an undersupply of jobs in low risk occupations.
How does that help New Zealanders, Sir Owen?
October 19th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Why even bother levying ACC as a separate tax?
I did the sums and if we were to remove the ACC component of vehicle relicensing, opting instead to just add the cost to each litre of petrol (a fairer way IMHO) we’d pay an extra 8c/litre at the pumps. Not a whole lot really and a damned site easier to stomach than a $750 annual bill for every bike > 500cc you might own. It would also mean that those who spend the most time on the roads would pay a premium that was proportional to their exposure.
It would also act as a “green tax” by discouraging the use of fuel-inefficient vehicles.
And, if we took away the ACC levy on wages, it would require an accross-the-board tax hike of about 3% — again, not a lot of money. What’s more, by taxing *all* income earners, the burden would be spread more evenly (even benficiaries have accidents and call on the ACC for help you know).
This would enable us to also simplify compliance costs (a savings for everyone and a much-needed hike in processing efficiency).
Why not do this?
Well possibly because it would disempower another arm of the state’s bureaucracy. Nobody with any power in ACC wants to see their empire shrink or have some of their power handed off to another department do they.
It’s more about “me” than us I’m afraid — but there’s nothing new there.
And, for the record, my wife continues to get worse while ACC refuse to pay for treatment for her brain injury suffered while she was in the care of the health system.
ACC sucks.
October 19th, 2009 at 11:44 am
aardvark, While I agree with you that ACC sucks and is often unfair, I think your solution will only make it worse. Opening ACC up to competition encourages people to manage and minimise their risk which will ultimately lead to lower premiums. If there are more players in the market, then if you feel they offer bad service you can change your insurer. Having ACC funding coming out of your taxes only encourages people to pursue dangerous activities with willful disregard to the consequences (look at the idiots at motor-x eating away at your ACC levies). Furthermore employers will have little incentive to improve the safety of their workplaces. On the other hand I agree with your fuel levy idea rather than taxes through vehicle registration. However, it would work for cars and not motorcyclists.
I am sorry to hear about your wife. It illustrates the shortcomings of ACC. ACC is only there for accidents and what is an accident is often grey, not black or white. A colleague was telling me the other day that he had an illness that he thought was an accident and ACC disagreed. Personally I felt his problem was not accident related, but simply discovered at the time of an accident. Nevertheless, he needed a period of rehab and time off work to get better. If it were covered by ACC he would have most of his pre-injury income and better funded rehab. Instead he lived for several weeks on a sickness benefit. The issue here is, was this fair. Currently a drunken driver can be well compensated for after crashing his car. Whereas a person suffering from multiple sclerosis who is unable to work cannot.
I would much rather have a policy that would cover both accidents and unexpected illnesses that would cause loss of income and require rehabilitation and ongoing healthcare. To keep my premiums down it would be my job to manage accident risk and to keep myself healthy. Only through private competition could policy and coverage be broadened. I would of course have to pay more, which is my prerogative.
October 19th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
David,
As a self-employed IT contractor, I just got a bill in the post from ACC. In it the two cost items of interest to me were the cost of covering my injuries at work (0.07%) vs the cost of covering my injuries outside of work (1.4%). As you can see, the cost of out of work injuries is 20 times the cost of injuries that I sustain at work. OK – the worst that is likely to happen to me is a spot of OOS at work (or whatever it is called).
I wish I had the opportunity for a voluntary excess – e.g. cover the first $100 of physio, or cover the first 2 months of downtime due to injury. In such a situation I’m sure I could bring down the cost of my ACC bill substantially. Why can’t ACC give me this option? I understand that it will add significant complexity to ACC and to insurers, but surely the reduced cost would be worth it even so.
Mark
October 19th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
MarkS – agreed. There would be an almighty sense of grievance if a person took up a voluntary excess, got seriously injured by a grossly drunk driver but then could not sue the driver.
The case of clerical v freezing workers. Ministers of the cloth were lumped in with other personal assistance workers – the former (perhaps by divine providence) have a very low accident rate while the personal assistance group as a whole has lots of cricked backs handling elderly folk.
When National part privatised ACC in the late 1990′s, the churches saved heaps by going private.
October 19th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
DPF – If you are happy about ACC charging a $50 or $100 excess ( which is essentially what it is) – why should that happen under a no fault scheme? If you are not at fault, have an identified third party who admitted liability – say you had a motor vehicle accident causing injury – you can’t recover your excess, whereas you have the ability to under your motor vehicle insurer. Hardly fair, as further outlined here.There will be no provision for a voluntary excess under ACC either, as I understand…
October 19th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
peterwn – it would be a voluntary excess. If I selected such an option that applied only to me to bring down my annual premiums, I can hardly complain. OK, so some people want their cake and eat it too. People should select a voluntary excess that they are comfortable with. I could handle 2 months off work with no income but not 6 months. Somebody else might be able to handle 6 months. I suppose somebody will claim that the poorest people would go for the highest possible voluntary excess but not be able to handle the consequences. Perhaps have a default option of zero voluntary excess, but allow people to change it (like kiwisaver is for employees).
October 19th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
What gets me is that the part time word processor operator in a horse trainer’s office has higher ACC levies (as a percentage of her income) than a front row forward for the Warriors.
And if anybody doesn’t believe me, place a wager; I will get the facts for you.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Is it time to dump ACC for all so called accidents that happen outside the work place ?
The funding model is a joke with employers getting hammered and employees who are white collar types who ski on the weekends getting off with paying sod all.
The same applies to some bloody tourist on a bike, he/she pays no ACC levees so why should they be treated, they spend money in NZ I hear,so do I yet I pay.
Nope, just send it back to the workplace only, have an accident skiing, too bad if you do not have private cover.
October 19th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Grumpy……..I agree.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
In the case of white collar types, surely that would be relevent for DPF’s company & perhaps he could say how many ACC claims his employees & himself made over that period overall, not just the number of claims whilst at work.
I’m a fan of ACC, but it has to be on a financially sound basis & as such I think DPF is 100% right about partial claim, I also think the first $100 should be targeted, though similar to healthcare, that should be influenced by age & income.
I personally think White Collar ACC payers are whingers who conveniently forget how many injuries their staff incur in non-work related activities & also the longer term & expensive costs of things like RSI ( which are not necessarily apparent straight away ).
October 19th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
sorry nigel, how can you be a “fan” of ACC?
Which ACC is it that you prefer?
The no fault accident insurance system that eliminates the right to sue, and prevents the tort law practitioners?
or
the welfare system on steroids that is busy expanding its “entitlement” regime?
because the former seems long missing in action, and the latter is extending its tentacles even as i type (in fact when will my ergonomic home desk be delivered oh case manager!)
October 19th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
actually nigel, i’ve read your comment properly now, you really are just a student activist arent you – slow night in the common room is it?
why should employers have to pay for the injuries incurred by their staff during their leisure time? Do employers own their staff? If they have to pay for the risk, perhaps they should have some say in selecting “appropriate” leisure activities?
because thats where your somewhat weak logic takes you.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:03 am
I pay for private medical insurance. I also pay for private income protection insurance. I do not want to pay higher ACC levies, thank you very much. I want a refund because I am taking care of myself.
October 20th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Employers do not pay dfkn, the employees do, the employers collect the money & pass it onto ACC, put another way the cost is built into reduced wages. If companies don’t pay ACC & just the work related costs, employees or companies would have to pay the leisure time insurance cost. There is no free lunch the insurance money get’s paid somehow.
The question is whether a central system like ACC is more efficient than a more segmented system like the USA. Personally I’ll take ACC thanks.