Ratings, company ratings, like those bestowed by Standards & Poors (S&P) and Moodys, often come up in discussion between advisers and insurers.

What's interesting about this discussion is it always seems to be about this company is rated better than that company. Without swearing too much, FFS, play the ball not the player.

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.

One of the things that regularly comes up with the discussion on risk is estate planning. This post is the first of a three-part legal series from the team at Legal Beagle to outline the considerations on estate planning that might apply to you.

You do not have a need for insurance now, or you have sufficient cover for now, but you expect to need more cover in the future.

You do not want to find you have your future medical conditions affecting your cover when you do apply?

Part of this is why insurance companies want you to buy cover before you develop medical conditions, the insurance companies feel selected against if you only take cover because you have a condition. This is why they apply underwriting at application time.

By posting this, I’m going to raise a contentious topic. One that clients often do not understand, advisers generally avoid discussing, providers publicly discourage but operationally encourage and the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) is starting to have a closer look at.

I have stated the previous parties in a very specific order, from most impacted to the one with the stick they can use, and the players in between.

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.