An interesting question that is often asked. In a nutshell, whatever you like, just that it gets deducted from your ACC weekly compensation claim.

ACC weekly compensation is there to cover loss or replace a loss of income. You earn something that loss is reduced; your ACC payment will be reduced too.

How does this work?

Maybe you should have another look. This opinion piece in the New Zealand Herald is a great example of why you need a good risk adviser, who also works with ACC, as well as your insurance. 

No, you employed people aren't exempt from this either. If you plan on taking a break from employment for any reason you too need advice on your ACC coverage for accident disabilities and weekly compensation.

Change, it seems to be the only constant. Innovation and new products from businesses seem to be a constant stream. 

In the world of insurance and risk, it is much the same. In 2015 ACC paid $718,000,000 to cover the cost of work-related injury claims.

Self-employed? Yup.

Sick of hearing about ACC and health and safety? Yup!

Ok sorry I've got news for you, neither is going away in a hurry. Actually the health and safety bit is going to get worse. I'll talk more about that in another post, as there's a few things going on in the background I'm looking at for clients.

Back to the self-employed and ACC thing.

You've got a fairly steep learning curve going on and ACC has just thrown a spanner in the works. It's a spanner in the works because ACC isn't intuitive and you're short on time and don't have time to figure this crap out right now.

If this resonates with you, you need to read this, it will short cut this for you.

Let's start with the simple things you need to understand first.

If you are self-employed the answer is you should! We don't joke about this, restructuring your ACC will give you more certainty if you are disabled through an accident and if you have talked to a financial adviser and arranged income protection, you will have more certainty for non-accident disabilities as well.

Let me start at the beginning. You started your own business and you have been doing your thing for a few years, you have no income protection because you have got by this long without it.

This is what we achieved for one of our clients without getting creative on cover levels and types of cover, the creative bit is likely to be another $2-3000 per annum ongoing.

So what have we achieved?

We've managed to achieve a $2,500 per year average saving on what they were previously doing and this applies to what they do going forward. Add to this an additional $2000 per annum after restructuring how they're covered, giving an expected savings of $4,500 per annum ongoing.

Significant in most people's book, so how did we achieve this?

ACC have published the new motor vehicle levies and they make interesting reading.

ACC have gone through and assigned a rating system from L1 to L4 for most vehicles, L1 being the most expensive and L4 being the least. If yours is not defined then the levy works on a year of manufacture basis. L1 for older vehicles and graduating though to the cheapest L4 for newer vehicles.

The reason I’m writing this is I disagree with some of the assertions in the NZ Herald article. ACC have done this review based on claims risk from actual injury data not vehicle safety. Injury’s drive ACC’s costs, not vehicle safety. Yes safer vehicles generally means less injuries and less ACC cost, but that doesn’t always translate directly from vehicle safety testing.

ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation) is New Zealand's unique no fault accident rehabilitation and support system

Ok, most of you know about ACC covering you for your medical expenses to treat you and recover from an accident. 

If you have had an accident you probably found this to be partially funded and you had to pay something towards the costs, depending on what you needed to be done. Which is a little disappointing but medical expenses only go so far.

The other aspect people know about is the replacement of income if you are off work in an accident situation, where 80% of your lost income can be replaced after seven days while you recover.

The things people may not fully appreciate are the other benefits and situations ACC cover which you need to be aware of.

You are not alone; most business people comment that ACC levy invoices do not make much sense.

Part of the reason for this is the way ACC levies are calculated, some in advance and some in arrears. Often this is not in a sequential order so you might be paying this year's and paying a wash up on a year before last. This is usually because of the way you have reported your accounts; this is also across two or more levy invoices. Added to this the various components to cover the past and future risks ACC have, credits that happen if you have overpaid a portion calculated on a prior estimate.