Updating Accident Compensation Review Costs Regulations

About the Accident Compensation Review Costs Regulations

ACC Claimants who disagree with a decision made by ACC are able to have the decision reviewed by an independent reviewer.

ACC is required under section 148 of the Accident Compensation Act 2001 to award claimants some of the costs of taking a review, where the independent reviewer makes a decision fully or partly in favour of the claimant, or considers the claimant has acted reasonably.

The review costs rates are set out in the Accident Compensation (Review Costs and Appeals) Regulations 2002 (the Regulations) and are paid for by ACC.

MBIE has undertaken a review to assess if any adjustments to the maximum amounts payable are required to take into account increases in the costs of undertaking a review.

Objectives of the review

The policy objectives of the Review Costs Regulations were to ensure that the Regulations will:

• Improve access to justice for claimants
• Be transparent and consistent
• Discourage frivolous and excessive litigation, and
• Support an efficient and effective review process.

Consultation

We provided a consultation document to seek your feedback on the proposed changes and the options you thought would best meet the Review Objectives.

We consulted on proposals to reduce the current range of cost categories from 14 to 4 and increase the maximum amount awardable in each cost category.

We also consulted on 2 options for determining costs awardable for representation for claimants.

Submissions received

We received 19 submissions for the ACC review costs consultation.

Note that one submission has been withheld under section 9(2)(ba)(i) of the Official Information Act 1982. We have also redacted contact details included in most of the submissions, where that information does not appear to be already publicly available, under section 9(2)(a) of the OIA.