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Newsgroups: nz.general,nz.politics
January 20 2002
ACC Compensation for Sexual Abuse; Compilation of Data
by Gordon Waugh
COMPILATION OF ACC DATA
1988 to 2002
(INCLUDING SOURCE DATA)
Compiled by
Gordon Waugh,
Whenuapai
ITEM 1.
Source : New Zealand
Herald, 19 August 1995
$830m lump-sum compo rush.
A rush to pick up lump-sum compensation cost ACC more than $830 million in
the past few year. Nearly 110,000
claims were paid out since the lump-sum payment was abolished in the 1992
ARCI Act an claimants with injuries prior to 1 July 1992 were allowed to
register claims during a 3-year transitional period.
$151,661,123 was paid out for loss of bodily function and $681,213,727 for loss of enjoyment of life.
[Comment : Whilst most of the
former payments will relate to physical injuries such as loss of limbs, the
vast majority if the latter payments will be sexual abuse "sensitive:
claims, usually $10,000 each. Where
a number of different episodes and perpetrators are named, complainants have
received $10,000 per incident, and there are cases where satanic ritual abuse
has been alleged, and complainants have been paid $60,000 sums by ACC. There are still over 4,000 claims to be reviewed.]
[Note it was confirmed to me by ACC in a letter dated 5 June 1996, and
also in its 1995 Annual Report (page 22) that "between 1 July 1992 and
30 June 1995, ACC made 109,393 lump sum payments totalling $833M. This
comprised $152M for impairment of
bodily function and $681M for loss of enjoyment of life. The average payment was around
$7,600."]
ITEM 2.
Source : New Zealand Herald, October
1992
Sexual abuse boosts compo claims.
Sexual abuse victims have been apply for help from the Accident
Rehabilitation and Compensation Insurance Corporation at the rate of up to
500 a week.
About 6000 abuse claims were lodged with the corporation in the three months
to September. This massive surge
compares with a total of 2173 claims in the year to June 1991 and 1075 claims
in the preceding 12 months.
The corporation attributes the increase to the September 31 cutoff date for
lump sum payments, increased knowledge of payments available to victims and a
growing awareness and acceptability of seeking help.
Between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of claims have been lodged by men and 98
per cent of claims are accepted.
The manager of the corporation's sensitive claims unit. Mr Simon Radford,
said there was a greater number of claims than had been expected but extra
staff had been brought in to cope with them.
"We have a strategy to clear the work that is to hand which has involved
bringing in extra resources to cope with that. It's not out of hand by any means."
Changes to the corporation from July 1 meant that anyone who was abused after
that date could not apply for a lump sum of up to $27,000 but the corporation
would pay towards the costs of counselling on a "case by case"
basis.
Mr Radford said the process of considering the eligibility of most claims was
straightforward and they could be approved within a month, although a
counsellor's report was needed and this could delay decisions.
Most of the claims related to abuse within families and were starting to
taper off to about 100 a day, down from a peak of 300 a day during some
weeks.
"There has been a large number of claims because people are conscious of
the fact that lump sums are going but the other thing is that many of these
claims date back to abuse many years ago and I think people are starting to
feel comfortable coming out and saying they have been abused."
Under the new legislation, those abused before 1974, when the compensation
scheme was introduced, may now apply for help with counselling.
The date when they first saw a doctor about the abuse is deemed to be the
date of the abuse. Payments ranging
from $56 to $78 an hour for counsellors are available. -NZPA
ITEM 3.
Source : Sunday Star-Times, late 1992 or early 1993. The
statistics given match those in ACC Annual Reports.
ACC pays $20m to sex abuse claimants.
(By Rob Drent)
Almost $20 million was paid out to sexual abuse claimants by the Accident
Compensation Corporation in 1992.
Figures to late December show payments were made to 2173 people - making the
average payout just under $10,000.The 1992 sexual abuse compensation of $19.9
million is a huge rise on previous years, when sex abuse claims were lumped
in with others under a general heading of "pain and suffering, loss of
enjoyment of life."
In this group, payouts were made in 1991 to 1075 claimants totalling $9.7
million; in 1990, $6 million to 667 claimants; 1989 $4.1 million to 445
people and 1988, $1.9 million to 221.
[The remainder of this short item repeats some of the assumptions about
why the huge increase happened.]
ITEM 4.
Source : NZ Herald, 6 April 1993
Sex abuse claims flood in
About 100 sexual abuse compensation claims are being made around the country
each day, the Accident Rehabilitation and Compensation Insurance Corporation
says.
The corporation policy planning general manager, Lauretta Alessi, said
yesterday that the claims were for various forms of abuse including sexual
violation, incest and child molestation.
She said it was not known exactly why there was such a large number of claims
being sent. The daily average used
to be 20.
"We think it may be because now it is more acceptable to talk about
abuse and because of the cut-off dates for applying for lump sum compensation
payments."
Requests for lump sum payments had to be made by March 31 this year.
[Comment ; But government later
extended the cut-off date to 30 June 1995, and even then, it kept going for a
bit.]
ITEM 5.
Source : NZ Herald, 22 September 1995, Section 1, Page 5.
Sex abuse counselling costs reach $8.3m
Wellington -
The Accident Rehabilitation and Insurance Corporation received an
increased number of sexual abuse claims in the year to June and is worried
about the cost of counselling.
In its annual report tabled in Parliament yesterday the corporation said it
registered 11,740 sexual abuse claims in the 12 months under review compare
with 10,800 in 1993-94.
"The principal entitlement being sought is payment for counselling and
this has become an issue of concern to the corporation," the report
said.
"Counselling costs for sensitive claims during the year totalled more
than $8.3 million."
The report says the corporation found itself increasingly in the position of
funding counselling and other entitlements for individuals with psychological
problems which could not be identified clearly as resulting from only the
sexual abuse incident which has cover under the scheme, it said.
[There were a couple more paragraphs of general material].
ITEM 6.
Source : The Dominion, 22 January 1997
Increasing cost of sex abuse claims concerns ACC (by Frances Ross)
ACC says it has no data on the costs of compensating victims of sexual abuse,
despite nearly 20,000 active claims and big concerns about the increasing
amount of money spent on them.
In its annual report, ACC singles out the continued high volume of increasing
costs of sexual abuse claims as a big concern.
During the year ended 30 June 1996 there were 9982 sensitive claims lodged,
compared with 11,750 the previous year and 10,800 in 1993-94.
The Sensitive Claims Unit had 19,130 active claims in 1995-96, the report
said.
"Last year the corporation noted with concern increasing costs in
compensation for these claims, mostly in providing counselling for claimants.
This trend has continued and erodes the cost reduction gained through
the removal of lump sum compensation from the scheme."
Asked for actual costs, corporation spokesman Alan Seay said the ACC computer
was not capable of identifying and costing sexual abuse claims.
"The system was set up for people who fall off ladders and that sort of
thing so our codings do not cover sensitive claims," Mr Seay said.
"We don't really know what it costs but we do know that it is a huge
amount of money."
Mr Seay said there had been a big jump in the number of sexual abuse
counsellors accredited as ACC providers over the past two or three years,
with numbers rising from about 300 to 1000.
"That's the basis for our saying costs are increasing."
He said the corporation had appointed more case mangers to deal with
sensitive claims, and was now classifying all such claims according to their
seriousness.
"What we don't want is people being treated for two to three years for
something relatively minor." [But
some claimants remain in counselling for more than ten years !!!!]
It was also implementing a new computer system that would be able to classify
sensitive claims and identify the costs of compensating
claimants.
ITEM 7.
Source : NZ Herald, 10 January 1998
Minimal payout for sex abuse overturned (by James Gardiner)
A 17-year-old woman is in line for $60,000 compensation after successfully
challenging an ACC ruling that more than 400 incidents of sexual abuse she
suffered constituted a single injury by accident.
The AR&I corporation has been slammed by the Accident Compensation Appeal
Authority for failing to consider the multiplicity of the incidents of sexual
abuse.
The Authority, Peter Cartwright, described the corporation and its review officer
as "artful", suggesting cunning and possibly underhand methods were
used to avoid paying out more money. [Snip….]
[This was quite a long article, but
the above illustrates the point about payment on a "per incident"
basis.]
ITEM 8.
Source : NZ Herald, 25 April 1996
Woman coerced to have sex 17 times will get up to $170,000
[As with Item 7 above, the key points only are given here.]
Wellington
- A woman who was coerced by her
psychologist into having sex with him 17 times will get up to $170,000 in
accident compensation.
In a landmark decision, an Accident Compensation Appeal Authority
adjudicator, Mr Peter Cartwright, has allowed the woman's appeal against an
ACC decision that all of the sexual abuse was a single act, entitling her to
a maximum $10,000 lump-sum payout.
Mr Cartwright ruled "Each of the 17 separate incidents identified by the
appellant should be treated as personal injuries by accident."
[snip….] - NZPA
ITEM 9.
Source : A letter to me from ACC dated 30 January
1998.
To fill in some gaps in the statistical table, I asked ACC for current data
from 1994 to 1997. The answer was :
FY 1994/95 - 10,589 new claims. Total cost including counselling,
$12,434,851.
FY 1995/96 - 11,858 new claims. Total cost $11,242,426.
FY 1996/97 - 12,036 new claims. Total cost $12,915,655.
ITEM 10.
Source : Sunday Star-Times, Sunday 13 June 1999
Title : Claims expanded
Body :
More than 60,000 people reporting psychological effects from sexual abuse have
made claims to ACC since 1992. ACC
declined about 20,000.
ITEM 11.
Source : The NZ Herald, Tuesday 15 June 1999
Title : Sex Cases
More people suffering the psychological effects of sexual abuse will be able
to claim accident compensation from next month as the grounds for claims have
been expanded.
Of the 61,219 claims lodged with the ACC since 1992 in relation to sex
crimes, 40,790 received compensation.
ITEM 12.
Source : A letter to me from ACC dated 2 October
1998
ACC gave the following information :
In response to your further questions :
(a) Of the $9m paid in
entitlements for the year 1997/98, $2.3m was spend on Independence
Allowance. Entitlements paid depend
on a claimant's circumstances, therefore it is incorrect and misleading to
simply divide the number of claims by the amount paid in entitlements.
{Not if one wants to establish an average !!!]
(b) Approximately one quarter to
one-third of claims lodged are not pursued further by the claimant and are
declined and others are declined through not meeting the regulated
criteria. Hence the difference
between the number lodged and number accepted.
ITEM 13.
Source : Hon Bruce Cliffe, Minister of ACC, in letter MIN 6549 dated 16 June
1995.
This letter was in response to some questions I asked the Minister. He wrote
that in 1992/93, the cost of claims was $43,547,000 of which $37 million was
lump-sum payments.
In 1993/94, the cost was $24,130,000 including approximately $16 million
spent on "the declining number of lump sum payments."
ITEM 14.
Source : NZ Herald 16 December 1995
Lump sums to cost ACC $15m more
Winding down lump-sum compensation payouts is expected to cost the ACC and
extra $15 million.
A rush to pick up lump sums has already cost it more than $830 million in the
three years to June 30, 1995.
A further 2387 payouts, totalling $8.1 million, have been made since the June
cut-off date. The average lump-sum
payment was about $3400, less than half the average payment made before the
cut off date.
A spokesman for the corporation, Mr Fred Cockram, said some claimants were
seeking only to top-up payments already received, while other cases had gone
in the corporation's favour.
He estimated that the corporation would cough up a further $7 million to
settle about 2000 remaining claims
Almost 110,000 claims were paid out during a transitional period after the
Government abolished lump-sum. Compensation in the 1992 Accident
Rehabilitation and Insurance Act,
Claimants who had received injuries before the act came into effect on July
1, 1992, were allowed to register claims for lump-sum payouts during a
three-year transitional period.
Although many claims were already before the ACC at the time the new act was
passed, a further 63,000 were later lodged.
ITEM 15.
Source : Manawatu Evening Standard, 1
November 2000
$16m sex abuse payout.
People suffering the psychological effects of sexual abuse cost taxpayers
nearly $16 million a year. Figures
from ACC showed the sensitive claims unit paid out $15.8 million for 4,400
claims in the year to June 30. [2000]
ACC received far fewer claims last year, with 4500 compared to 8000 the year
before,
[Snip…]
ITEM 16.
Refer also to ACC Annual Reports which are tabled
in Parliament usually around September of each year. They should be available in
Libraries. In 1995, they also put out
a "review" document titled "Accident Compensation
1995". Makes interesting
reading, especially Page 26
SUMMARY
Putting all that together, The number
of new claims since 1988 looks
like :
FY New Claims
1988 221
1989 445
1990 667
1991 1075
1992 2173
1993 13000
1994 10800
1995 11750
1996 9982 -
The lump-sum money stopped about here. (50,113
claims)
1997 8362
1998 7236
1999 7971
2000 4400
2001 4289
Total 82,971
Over the 1993 - 1999 period, the average was 69,101 / 7 = 9,872 claims per
annum.
In the same period, about 750 or so would have been convicted annually for
all types of sexual crime. That data
is available from the Ministry of Justice report "Convicting and
sentencing offenders in NZ" - I
have access to that and it forms a useful basis for comparison. ACC claims in
this period are 13.16 times higher.
ACC Website gives figures for New & Accepted Claims, but does not appear
to give data on numbers of claims declined.
This would appear to account for their lower figures from 1994/5 to
2000/1.
Alan Seay was cited as saying that ACC did not know how much these sexual
abuse claims cost, but it was a huge amount.
For the reason that ACC did not properly classify claims, and did not modify
its computer until around 1996, it is very difficult to accurately piece
together the actual costs, so it is necessary to estimate from the various
sources and sets of information.
A primary one is the $833M, which ACC paid out between 1 July 1992 and 30
June 1995. ACC made 109,393 lump sum payments totalling $833M. This
comprised $152M for impairment of
bodily function and $681M for loss of enjoyment of life. The average payment was around $7,600. It
is reasonable to infer that much of the $681M was for sexual abuse claims,
but problematical as to exactly how much.
Given the number of claims and the amounts advised from 1988 to 1992, in
which the figures to late December 1992 show payments of $19.9M were made to
2173 people. Earlier payouts were
made in 1991 to 1075 claimants totalling $9.7 million; in 1990, $6 million to
667 claimants; 1989 $4.1 million to 445 people and 1988, $1.9 million to
221. The total for that short period
was $41.6M for 4581 claimants, the average being $9081 each.
According to Bruce Cliffe, then Minister of ACC, in 1992/93, the cost of
claims was $43.5M and in 1993/94, $24.1M.
And according to ACC :
FY 1994/95 - 10,589 new claims. Total cost including counselling,
$12,434,851.
FY 1995/96 - 11,858 new claims. Total cost $11,242,426.
FY 1996/97 - 12,036 new claims. Total cost $12,915,655.
For 1997/98, ACC advised me of 7,236 new claims (of which they said
approximately 4,419 were accepted) with payouts of $15M.
On its Website, [www.acc.org.nz] [from
"publications" select "injury statistics" and go to
Section 12 Sensitive Claims] ACC gives figures for 1998/99 of 3,493 claims
and $12.6M, for 1999/2000, 3,670 claims and $13.5M, and for 2000/01, 4,289
claims and $14.69M.
The total from 1988 then appears to be about $202M.
Now return to the massive $833M item and the typical averages. For ease of assessment, let's use an
average of a neat $10,000. In the
period for which lump sums were being paid, from 1988 to late in 1996, the
total number of claims was 50,113.
Multiplied by $10,000 gives an assessed total of $500M. The ACC Complaints Authority noted that
ACC was "artful", cunning
and possibly underhand - and I can vouch for that through my own experience
with them ! Couple that to the
incredible fact that they did not know how much was being spent, and I feel
that the answer is closer to $500M than $200M.
Whatever the actual amount - and no one knows exactly what it is – the
payments are made on the flimsiest basis.
No proof of abuse is needed. No
report to police or criminal convictions.
The alleged perpetrator need not be named. Counsellors do not investigate or
corroborate - they believe the claimants.
And ACC believes the counsellors.
By some form of arcane magic, ACC decisions are made "on the
balance of probability" that abuse occurred - with just one set of
information. In my opinion, this is
the biggest swindle NZ has ever seen.
Gordon Waugh
Whenuapai
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