If you are full time self-employed and you have not restructured your ACC, you are a bloody numpty

Yes, I called you a numpty! There's a reason for this.

As a self-employed person when it comes to accident injuries you have to prove your income to get weekly compensation paid.

The biggest issue with self-employed weekly compensation claims?
They cannot prove the income they think they are earning.

Secondly, as they return to work, any income derived from their activities gets taken off their weekly compensation payments. Meaning you could lose your entitlements faster than you actually earn income.

The agreed value version of ACC called Cover Plus Extra (CPX) has two key advantages, even if you do not do anything but more your current level of cover to CPX

ACC CPX Advantages

1. It is agreed, levies are relatively stable, and you know exactly what you will receive for your weekly compensation. Sometimes this can be more than your typical 80% entitlement too.
2. When returning to work on light duties, it still pays a full weekly compensation claim. Meaning if you have hired help to keep things going you have the ability to retain them until you are fully recovered.

So how does a typical ACC restructure relationship start?

Well, this is where the bloody numpty bit comes in. Let's use Albert as an example in this quite simplified chat:

About June of any given year

Albert: J-P I have got this levy bill, what do I do with it?
J-P: How much is it?
Albert: $3,000.
J-P: Ok, what did you earn last year?
Albert: About $60k (trade of some description)
J-P: and what have you earnt, or look to be earning this year?
Albert: About double, maybe more.
J-P: Ok we can setup a payment plan to deal with it, and we can talk about restructuring your approach to keep the cost under control. I will email through and setup the payment plan for you. When can we meet?
Albert: That sounds great!

J-P: Hi Albert, nice to meet. What we can do is restructure you to a fixed level of agreed value ACC cover at a lower level and implement income protection to pick up both your medical and accident disabilities and save you some money on what the next bill looks like.
Albert: That sounds good, what's it cost?
J-P: As next year is looking like a $7,000 ACC bill we need to act now to minimise that and what we do with your income protection is based on your higher income level too.
It may be slightly higher than what you have paid this year in total, but significantly less than what you face for next year, at the same time we minimise the impact of this year's ACC invoicing and next year you will see the full effect of the savings from the restructuring.
Albert: Ok... Let me think about it...

June the following year, because Albert is a numpty and didn't act:

Albert: J-P I have got this levy bill, what do I do with it?
J-P: How much is it?
Albert: $7,000.
J-P: Ok, what did you earn last year?
Albert: About $145k (trade of some description)
J-P: and what have you earnt, or look to be earning this year?
Albert: About double, maybe more.
J-P: Ok we can setup a payment plan to deal with it, and we can implement the approach we talked about last year to keep costs under control. I will setup the payment plan for you. When can we meet?
Albert: That sounds great!

Don't be Albert

Be the person taking affirmative action and dealing with it now. Yes I know you are busy, everyone is. However, this stuff does not wait.

The typical tradie Albert will save about $2,000 in the scenario outlined here if they act in the first year and not the second. Yes, there's some cash flow considerations, we help manage those too.

Get in touch, let us manage your risk, ACC, Life and General Insurance as well as your Health & Safety

We make it even easier by letting you book with one of the team directly at a time that suits you.

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