Injuries from falls
Find statistics on injury claims relating to injuries from falls.
- 2024 ytd injury costs and new/active claim numbers from falls.
- Fall-related injury claims and costs by year - 2015 to 2024 (ytd).
- New claims for fall-related injuries in 2024 (ytd) by injury type.
- New claims for fall-related injuries, by region and by age - 2021 to 2024 (ytd).
- Caveats to this data.
Falls are more likely to affect children and those aged over 65. Criteria for a fall include:
- slipping or skidding on foot
- tripping or stumbling
- loss of consciousness or sleep
- something giving way underfoot
- misjudgement of support
- loss of balance or personal control.
Sometimes claims can meet the criteria for being at home and a fall. This means a claim may be counted once, or it may be counted in more than one category.
New claims
Active claims
Fall-related injury claims and costs by year
| Year | New claims | Active claims | Cost of active claims |
| 2015 | 826,333 | 898,025 | $1,035,408,025 |
| 2016 | 807,987 | 888,867 | $1,093,550,363 |
| 2017 | 775,644 | 859,644 | $1,131,634,195 |
| 2018 | 796,293 | 885,088 | $1,270,638,633 |
| 2019 | 808,680 | 910,910 | $1,405,829,361 |
| 2020 | 754,784 | 862,916 | $1,510,854,106 |
| 2021 | 762,776 | 884,086 | $1,637,203,598 |
| 2022 | 750,362 | 870,806 | $1,859,962,283 |
| 2023 | 793,722 | 921,431 | $2,153,340,228 |
| 2024 YTD | 624,230 | 771,097 | $1,853,996,321 |
More information
Maintaining your strength and balance can be an integral part of helping you to stay safe from falls and keep living the life you love. Learn how we're working to support you.
Staying safe from trips and falls
We offer a range of strength and balance activities to help keep older people active and independent for longer, so they can keep doing the things they love.
Try out our new Nymbl app on your mobile phone or tablet and improve your balance at home or on the go.
- A calendar year is 1 January to 31 December.
- Accredited employer claims have been excluded.
- New claims have been counted by the date that ACC registered a claim. This can be immediately after the injury occurred or at any later stage.
- Active claims are claims that generated a payment in the relevant calendar years. These claims were not necessarily registered, or had the accident occur, in the same calendar year.
- Costs provided are exclusive of GST.
- Costs are based on payment date. Payment date may be different to the date of service.
- Costs do not include Public Health Acute Services (PHAS) payments. Treatment for covered claims in public hospitals is provided by an annual service agreement between ACC and the Ministry of Health, and is funded by bulk payments from ACC to the Crown.
- The calendar year and month in which the service was paid may differ to the calendar year and month in which the service was provided.
- A claim can cover multiple calendar years. A claim which lasts longer than one year is counted as 'active' once for each calendar year covered. For example, a claim which lasted from 2020 to 2022 would be counted a total of three times, once for each calendar year.
- Diagnosis is based on the client's primary injury. Claims may have multiple injuries; however, these secondary injuries will not show within this data extract.
- Age is based on the client's age at claim registration and may differ to their age at the time of an accident.
- Location is based on where an accident took place and may differ to where a client was residing at the time.
- Data was extracted at a point in time and may differ if re-run later.
We have been made aware that there is an issue with some ACC data for March 2022. We are not aware of the full extent of this issue, and claim counts and costs are subject to change.