Financial support if you have a permanent injury

How we decide what financial support you can get

Whether you can get a one-off or an ongoing payment and how much these payments will depend on:

• the date that your injury happened
• your level of impairment.

Any payments that you get are tax-free. If you’re already receiving other financial support from us, it won’t affect these payments.

How to apply for financial help for a permanent injury

1. Ask for an application pack

   Call us or talk to your recovery team.

   Contact us

2. Complete the form

   You’ll need to ask your doctor to complete some forms as well. 

3. Send us your application

   Send it to us by email or post, or drop it at your local ACC branch.

   Where to send your application

If we accept your application

We’ll contact you when we receive your application. If we accept your application, you’ll need to get an assessment. We’ll talk to you about:

• your injuries that need to be assessed
• taking a support person
• how long the assessment will take
• your travel needs.

If we decline your application, we’ll let you know why.

If you need to re-apply

If your life-long injury gets worse or you have a new injury, you can apply again using the same process. You can do this once every twelve months.

Assessing your injury and level of impairment

We’ll organise and pay for your assessment. The assessment looks at the severity of your injury. This helps us decide how much financial help you’ll receive.

Arranging your assessment

We’ll refer you to an assessor trained in looking at impairments caused by injuries. We’ll send you a letter with details about your assessment. The assessor will get in touch to confirm your appointment.

We’ll pass any information we have about your injury on to the assessor. This includes:

• who's treated you
• what treatment you’ve received
• your current situation.

At the assessment

The assessor will explain what will happen. You’ll need to:

• talk about how your injury is affecting you
• let the assessor do any relevant examinations
• answer any questions.

We’ll let you know our decision

When we receive the assessment report we’ll let you know if you can receive payment. How much you get is based on your level of impairment determined at the assessment.

If the report shows you can't get any payments, we'll let you know why.

Receiving your one-off or ongoing payments

We’ll confirm your bank account number and let you know when you’ll get paid.

How long we'll make ongoing payments for

You'll get four ongoing payments a year. We'll stop making ongoing payments if a requested reassessment shows your level of impairment is below the threshold. 

When we'll stop making ongoing payments

If we, or your GP, think your permanent injury has changed since your last assessment, we'll ask you for a reassessment. If the reassessment shows your injuries level of impairment is below the threshold, we'll stop making ongoing payments.

Keep getting payments if you live overseas

If you live overseas, you can still get these payments. You need to have a New Zealand bank account.

Permanent Injury Compensation (PIC)

We provide Permanent Injury Compensation (PIC) based on a whole person assessment done by external assessors using American Medical Association (AMA) guidelines.  This assessment is completed once an injury is considered permanent and stable.

Impairment means you've lost some use of a part of your body. This is not the same as disability, which is about activities you can't do anymore. It also doesn't cover other challenges like not being able to work, feeling pain, or dealing with emotional upset. We know this can be hard to understand, especially for people who have had long-lasting or sensitive injuries and expect compensation for this. 

Where to get more help

There are organisations who can give you more help if you need it:

Amputees Federation
Brain Injury Association