ACC Roll-Overs 'Expected'

An ACC official say they are unsure of the reasons why more than half the country's employers and self employed are rolling over their accident insurance to remain with a Crown Entity.

Employers had to sign up with a private insurer by 5pm Friday and those that did not will be allocated to the SOE insurer, @Work, later this week. The Department of Labour Accident Insurance Regulator has been processing raw data from insurers over the weekend.

About 98,000 employers have gone to a private company, leaving more than 100,000 to go down the do nothing option. ACC Minister, Murray McCully, says it's a good result, considering that the signed contracts registered so far amount to around $370 million of an estimated total premium market of $600 million.

There are more than 110,000 contracts registered with the regulator already, 98,000 of which are employers and around 15,000 self-employed people.

An ACC official told The Scoop that they were still doing the number crunching, but it appeared that the roll-overs were mainly small business and self employed.

"We did expect that roll-overs would occur mainly in these groups, they are busy people, given an option to nothing and get on with business. We are fairly sure that many of them will get around to shopping around as the word spreads on potential savings," he said.

The official would not be drawn on whether Labour's promise to repeal the changes if they take the Treasury benches. "I think most people would say we will cross that bridge if we come to it. Businesses can only work on what they have in front of them."

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