29 March 2011

Media release

South Island farmers injured every day at work

About 122 farmers were injured every week last year in the South Island while they were at work.

To help farmers understand the causes of accidents, ACC has teamed up with FarmSafe and AsureQuality to run a pilot safety analysis programme for farmers. The service is called Human Factors in Farming and involves rural advisors confidentially reviewing near-misses or accidents, directly with the farmers involved.

After visiting the farm and talking with the farmer, the rural advisors then send the farmer a report with recommendations to prevent similar incidents occurring in the future.

Agriculture programme manager Peter Jones said the pilot aims to reduce the number of accidents on farms.

“Farmers commonly work with large, powerful machinery; handle unpredictable animals; and work long hours in all kinds of weather, often alone. These factors combined mean there are many hazards on a farm which can lead to a farmer being injured or worse.

“ACC’s Human Factors in Farming service can help farmers prevent injuries by helping them understand how particular decisions or choices they have made contributed towards the accident,” said Mr Jones.

ACC staff will be on hand to talk to farmers about the service at the South Island Field Days. Come along to the ‘ACC Insurance and Prevention Services’ stand (stand no 560) and find out more about effective health and safety systems, as well as ACC insurance products and services for employers and self-employed people . There’ll also be a chance to win a new quad bike helmet.

Preventing injuries will be all the more important from April when experience rating is introduced. Experience rating is a system which provides for discounts on levies for businesses with a better claims history, and loadings for those with a poor workplace safety record. It works in a similar way to a no claims discount offered by a private insurer, and makes the final ACC levy each business pays fairer because it takes into account their safety record.

From April, smaller businesses or self-employed people with levies of less than $10,000 will receive a ‘no claims’ discount of 10 percent provided they have had no weekly compensation or fatal injury claims over the previous three years. A loading of 10 percent will be applied to those businesses or self employed people with a poor safety record.

Ends

Background:

The regions in the South Island with the highest number of new ACC workplace injury claims last year were Canterbury (approx. 2,840 claims), Southland (approx. 1,245 claims) and Otago (approx. 1,200 claims).

If your readers/listeners are interested in the Human Factors in Farming service, they can contact Farmsafe on 0800 545 747 or AsureQuality 0508 00 11 22 for more information.

More on experience rating:

From April, smaller businesses or self employed people with levies of less than $10,000 will receive a ‘no claims’ discount of 10 percent provided they have had no weekly compensation or fatal injury claims over the previous three years.

There will be no change for businesses or self-employed people generating between one and 70 weekly compensation days paid.

A loading of 10 percent will be applied for businesses that generated more than 70 weekly compensation days paid or any fatal injury claim.

If a business’s performance is better, i.e. if there are fewer employees receiving weekly compensation, then the levy will be lower. However, if the performance is not as good, the levy will be higher. Levies can increase or decrease by up to 50 percent.

ENDS

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