For Your Office

The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) provides comprehensive, no-fault personal injury cover forall New Zealand residents and visitors to New Zealand.

Here is a summary of rules thatapply in relation to the ACC scheme covering employee entitlements and employerobligations:

• When an employee is taking leave for thefirst week of a NON-WORK accident, SICK LEAVE may be used 
• If an employee has a WORK-RELATEDaccident, the employer has to pay ‘FIRST WEEK COMPENSATION’ for a WORK-RELATEDaccident 
• An employer and employee can agree thatthe employer will top up the ‘first week compensation’ payment from 80% to 100%by reducing the employee’s sick leave entitlement by one day for each fivedays’ leave taken 
• If an employee has a WORK-RELATED orNON-WORK accident and remains on weekly compensation, the employer cannotrequire the employee to take time off as sick leave 
• If an employee is receiving weeklycompensation from ACC, the employer has no obligation to pay the employee 
• Where the period of leave on ACC is inexcess of five days (for either WORK-PLACE or NON-WORKPLACE accidents), theemployer and employee can agree that the employer will top up the ACC paymentfrom 80% to 100% by reducing the employee’s sick leave entitlement by one dayfor each five days’ leave taken. Annual leave may also be used 
• ACC payments commence from the secondweek but they are paid in arrears in the third week, so employees need to beaware that there is a ‘one week stand-down period’ wherethey will receive no income. Could your employee survivepotentially for up to 14 days without any income?  

The Accounted4 Payroll team havehad requests from ACC to complete ‘EmployeeEarnings Certificate—ACC003’ forms for several of our payrollclients. These forms can now be completed online and it can take about half anhour to collate the information, fill and submit it. Don’tdelay filling out the form as this can hold up the claim!

Our recommendation to employers isto ensure that your employee registers with the ACC at the earliest convenienceas it does take time to process claims and generate the weekly payment. 

Forfurther information about ACC entitlements see www.acc.co.nz

Payrollteam
Anne Bland   Extn. 831
Carolyn Lawrence  Extn. 837
Maree Craig  Extn. 825