Big increase in Otago tourist ACC claimants

Falls were the most common cause of injury in New Zealand, accounting for 39 per cent of all ACC claims. Photo / 123rf

Going on holiday may not be as good for your health as you think.

New statistics from the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) show the number of injuries to international visitors in Otago have increased nine-fold since the border reopened.

There were 1746 injury claims lodged by tourists this year, compared with just 189 in 2021.

With many skifields, water activities and other adrenaline-fuelled activities, Otago is the adventure capital of New Zealand, and it accounts for nearly two-thirds of the national total.

In 2021, 1128 injury claims were lodged by visitors.

So far this year, there have been 3006 claims - an almost three-fold increase - coming to an active claims cost of more than $2 million to help people recover.

And there were almost six times the number of New Zealanders hurt abroad.

ACC accepted 4706 injury claims in 2022 compared with 814 last year. The active claims cost of these injuries was $29 million.

ACC injury prevention programme leader James Whitaker said tourist claims were among the top five claim categories in 2022.

Other leading causes of claims were from weather-related injuries, trouble in the water, motor vehicle accidents and falls.

Mr Whitaker said ACC accepted 2781 claims for wind-related injuries which came to an active claims cost of $6 million to help people recover. Of those, 508 were umbrella-related injuries in 2022.

He said one of the biggest talking points of summer last year was the high number of people who drowned.

A total of 90 people drowned in 2021 - the highest in 10 years - and so far in 2022, there have been 83 preventable drownings.

From July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022, there were also 27,583 claims for water-related injuries.

“That’s about 76 claims a day from people out enjoying activities like surfing, fishing and swimming. The active claims cost was $81 million to help people recover from these injuries.”

He said ACC also accepted 30,830 road-related injury claims in 2022, which came with an active claims cost of $564 million to help people recover.

Falls were the most common cause of injury in New Zealand, accounting for 39 per cent of all ACC claims.

To date this year, there have been 691,411 claims for falls-related injuries, and the active claims costs so far spent in 2022 is $1.68 billion.

Whitaker said ACC accepted about two million claims for injury every year.

“That is about 5000 people getting hurt every day - and an active claims cost of about $4.5 billion to help people recover.”

He encouraged New Zealanders to stay safe over the summer break and think about the risk of injury.

“We want New Zealanders to enjoy their lives and have fun with their whanau and friends.

“We also want to put a challenge out there. No matter what you’re about to get into, have a ‘hmmm?’ before you jump in.

“Most injuries are preventable, and we can stay safe and keep doing the things we love if we take a moment to think about what we’re about to do, then make smart choices so we can make sure things turn out well.”