Tough rules for ACC lump-sum payout

By AUDREY YOUNG political reporter

Accident victims with permanent injury and sexual abuse victims with permanent mental impairment will qualify for lump-sum payments under ACC laws taking effect today.

Other new laws also taking effect from April 1 will bring:

* An average 30 per cent increase in road-user charges for light diesel vehicles - between $3.48 and $8.20 per 1000km.

* An extra security tax of $2.80 a passenger on domestic flights.

* Tougher rules for the medical certification of pilots.

Under the ACC law, the maximum lump-sum payment will be raised from $27,000 to $100,000, but the criteria will be a lot tougher than they were under the system that ended in 1992.

There will be no retrospective entitlement; the accident or abuse must have occurred from today onwards.

The new law also opens the way for claims for injury attributable to passive smoking and air conditioning systems.

But early claims are not expected.



To qualify for assessment, the injury must be deemed by ACC to be the result of a gradual process, disease or infection and to have occurred from today onwards.

ACC Minister Lianne Dalziel said it would be difficult for sexual abuse victims to qualify for a lump-sum payment. A doctor would have to certify they had a "significant permanent mental impairment".

Under the old lump-sum provisions, almost everyone was entitled to $10,000 for pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life.

The maximum payment was $27,000 for injury such as tetraplegia.

The new maximum will be $100,000 and victims must be assessed as having at least 10 per cent impairment.

Impairment of 80 per cent or more, such as total blindness, paraplegia or tetraplegia, will attract the maximum.



ACC guidelines say a lower-back injury caused by lifting might result in 5 per cent impairment and qualify for nothing.

Severe damage to knee ligaments might be assessed as 10 per cent impairment and qualify for $2500, and an amputation of the leg below the knee might be assessed at 32 per cent for a sum of $13,409.

The changes do not alter weekly earning-related compensation.

National replaced lump-sum payments in 1992 with a weekly allowance of between $10 and $64.

Now it plans that, if it wins the election, it will keep lump-sum payments on the basis that they are better controlled than in the past, says the party's ACC spokesman, Gerry Brownlee.

In the final year of the old scheme, 15,000 people were paid $245 million in lump sums.

The new scheme is forecast to cost $55 million for about 6000 people.

National's biggest complaint is the return to monopoly delivery of accident insurance, Mr Brownlee says.

"What you get is what ACC is prepared to give you. There is no one who advocates for an accident victim. The state prescribes the minimum benefits and the state delivers the minimum benefits."

The new ACC law, the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2001, also:

* Requires ACC to report all medical errors to the Health and Disability Commissioner and the relevant professional body.

* Extends weekly compensation to seasonal workers if the injury occurs within two weeks of their last job.

* Extends weekly compensation to workers on unpaid parental leave from the day they were due to return to work.

* Requires individual rehabilitation plans for employees off work for more than 13 weeks.

* Allows partners of people who die in an accident to convert instalments to a single payment.

* Requires employers to pay for the first week's compensation for employees injured in a work-related motor accident.

* Promotes a code of ACC claimants' rights, now in draft form.

* Establishes an information manager to collate injury data from ACC, labour, transport, welfare and health agencies.

Ms Dalziel said the requirement for ACC to report to the Health and Disability Commissioner came about because the corporation had been unable to pass on information to other authorities about the claims lodged by cancer victims relating to misdiagnosis of cervical smears in Gisborne.

Asked if $100,000 was a lot less than the likely damages that would be awarded for paraplegia if victims had the right to sue, she said: "The whole reason for trading off the right to sue was that it was never guaranteed to produce a result."