ACC scales back prevention work, internal video reveals

Saturday, 1 November 2025

ACC is pulling focus from injury prevention and equity work, an internal video obtained by The Post confirms

In a video update from chief executive Megan Main to ACC staff, obtained by The Post under the Official Information Act, Main confirms ACC is deprioritising injury prevention.

“We can't do everything. And so, we do need to reprioritise,” Main says on the video.

“What that means is for now, we need to deprioritise our efforts on injury prevention and our equity work to free up time, space, resource, effort to do those other things.”

Recently, news stories have trickled out about ongoing change at ACC - including a halt to the rollout of a sexual harm prevention programme, stopping a record number of payments to long-term clients, and a proposal to overhaul its Injury Prevention team.

In the September 2 video, Main says ACC Minister Scott Simpson has “ambitions for us to do more”. She said he was likely to talk publicly about those targets “in the next little while”.

She goes on to talk about the long-terms claims pool.This was an area Simpson specified in his letter of expectation earlier this year as needing a dedicated focus on reducing claimants.

Overall, “more people entered the long-term claims pool, over a year, than were supported to exit either back to work or back to independence”, she said, emphasising the need to turn that around.

“There's no silver bullet to this as we know, but it's a lot of work and there will be a lot of changes that we need to make to some of our processes as well.”

Labour ACC spokesperson Camilla Belich said the move was disappointing and short- sighted.

“We know that prevention is the way that we ensure that New Zealanders don't get injuries.

“It's not good for ACC, it's not good for New Zealand, and it seems incredibly short sighted that they would take away focus from what, from what I understand, have been quite successful programmes.”

In April, Simpson said: “My top priority with ACC is to address its declining performance and ensure the scheme remains financially sustainable for current and future generations.

“One of the best ways to both enhance the health and wellbeing of Kiwis and keep costs down is to prevent injuries from happening in the first place.”

Simpson told The Post, “ACC is prioritising rehabilitation to get clients back to work and being active in their communities”.

“However, I have full confidence ACC will continue to work with communities and its partners to prevent injuries.

“ACC needs to turnaround its performance to ensure the scheme can remain sustainable for generations to come.”

It comes as ACC remains in financial strife, earlier this month the state-owned insurer reporting a $1.5 billion deficit for the year to the end of June. The result adds to the $7.2b deficit last year and takes the insurer’s cumulative deficit to just over $13.8b.

In response to questions about injury prevention, Main said ACC is “focused on improving rehabilitation performance and ensuring our clients get the support they need to recover from injuries and return to work and independence”.

“Earlier in the year, we made the decision to prioritise our time, resource and effort to this work.”

She said while ACC was committed to prevent injuries, “our focus is on maximising our current investments to get the best results for New Zealanders, and new work, programmes and investments are being carefully considered”.

“This could mean changes to our current work programme and funding arrangements.”