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NZ Herald
February
4, 2002
Tough
rules for bigger ACC payouts
by
Simon Collins
Lump-sum payouts are back - but
the 'suffering' clause has gone, reports SIMON COLLINS
An arm will be worth $46,704, but a little finger
will be worthless, under a new lump-sum compensation scheme being introduced
on April 1.
The new scale, approved by Accident Insurance Minister Lianne Dalziel, will
be more generous to victims of serious accidents than the last lump-sum
scheme, which had a maximum payout of $27,000.
But, unlike the old scheme which was abolished in 1992, it will pay nothing
for accidents that reduce a person's overall functioning by less than 10 per
cent.
The new scheme will pay lump sums to about 6000 people a year and cost only
$55 million. The old scheme paid more than 15,000 people a total of $245
million in its last year in 1991-92.
Many claims under the old scheme were for historical sexual abuse claims,
which will not qualify under the new scheme because it will apply only to
events on or after April 1.
ACC chief executive Garry Wilson said the new scheme would also pay out only
on the basis of permanent loss or impairment, which was worth up to $17,000
under the old scheme - not on "pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment of
life", where the old scheme paid up to $10,000.
"The story was that if you had been sexually abused it was
$10,000," he said.
"Under the new system the whole basis of payment of lump sums is quite
different.
"It will only be paid on disability, or ongoing impairment.
"So for someone who breaks an arm, they won't get anything apart from
medical attention, because their arm will get fixed.
"If they lose two fingers, then fairly quickly you can establish an
ongoing impairment."
Sensitive Claims Unit manager Gail Kettle said fewer than 10 per cent of the
people who claimed ACC subsidies for sexual abuse cases in future would
qualify for lump sums, and then only one or two years after they started
counselling if it was clear then that the abuse had permanently impaired
their daily activities.
She expects sexually abused people who do get lump sums to be assessed as
only 10 per cent to 20 per cent impaired, qualifying for lump sums of between
$2500 and $6459. Those assessed as less than 10 per cent impaired will get
nothing.
The president of the Society for the Promotion of Accident Victims, Mervyn
Castle, said the new scheme was a "betrayal" of the original vision
of Sir Owen Woodhouse's royal commission in 1967.
Sir Owen did not propose lump sums, but in a 1988 report he recommended
ongoing payments to compensate for impairment, pain and suffering.
Ongoing "independence allowances" of between $10 and $64 a week
were introduced in 1992 to replace lump sums.
But they did not compensate for pain and suffering, and since 1997 the ACC
has defined "impairment" on a purely medical basis so that a leg,
for example, is worth the same 40 per cent impairment for everyone.
Mr Castle said the new scheme would
preserve the unfairness of the past five years.
"If you lose your leg and you're an accountant or a lawyer, I don't mean
any disrespect but that is not as serious as a labourer losing his leg,"
he said.
"With the labourer, his capacity to work is destroyed. His self-respect
is destroyed.
"His family is likely to be destroyed - pretty quickly you find that
happens.
"But a professional ... we can still do things. That is the big
issue."
However, the president of the Council of Trade Unions and a former ACC
director, Ross Wilson, said he accepted this as the price of getting lump
sums back.
"Unless you have a subjective assessment process you can't do that
degree of fairness in every individual," he said. "The CTU
perspective is that we are pleased to see lump-sum compensation restored,
because it's totally anomalous that you can be awarded damages for damage to
your reputation and not be able to get anything for physical or mental
illness as a result of a trauma."
Although the criteria for lump sums will be the same as for the existing
independence allowances, ACC still expects more people to apply for the lump
sums - 6000 a year, compared with just 364 new independence allowances
granted last year.
Garry Wilson
said many people did not bother to apply for independence allowances because
they were only small weekly amounts.
He expects that to change when the payouts become lump sums.
ACC lump sums
Lump sum compensation payable from April 1.
Injury
|
Level of
|
Impairment
|
|
|
Compensation
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Common lower
back injury lifting/bending
|
0-5%
|
Nil
|
|
Amputation
little finger or ring finger
|
5%
|
Nil
|
|
Back injury
causing pain & muscle wasting
|
10%
|
$2,500
|
|
Sexual abuse
|
0-20%
|
$0 - $6,459
|
|
Amputation
index or middle finger
|
11%
|
$2,837
|
|
Amputation
thumb
|
22%
|
$7,427
|
|
Total loss of
vision one eye
|
24%
|
$8,465
|
|
Amputation
leg below knee
|
32%
|
$13,409
|
|
Amputation
leg
|
40%
|
$19,920
|
|
Amputation
arm below elbow
|
57%
|
$41,424
|
|
Amputation
arm
|
60%
|
$46,704
|
|
Paraplegia
|
80%
|
$100,000
|
|
Total loss of
vision
|
85%
|
$100,000
|
|
Tetraplegia
|
90%
|
$100,000
|
|
