New Zealand’s home environment – beyond the reach of workplace health and safety frameworks and currently underfunding its own account – is generating burn injury claims at a rate not recorded since 2021, according to data published by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). The pattern arrives as ACC operates under a government-mandated turnaround programme targeting a return to scheme surplus by 2030.
Approximately 50% of all injuries in New Zealand occur in the home, with home injuries in 2025 generating 6.4 million days of weekly compensation, contributing an estimated $2.7 billion in lost productivity, and costing the scheme $934 million. Burns are a concentrated driver within that figure. Of the 20,000-plus burn claims accepted in 2025, 15,416 – approximately 75% – occurred in the home, at a total recovery cost exceeding $40 million.
That concentration carries a funding dimension that extends beyond frequency. Many home-based injuries for non-earners are processed through the Non-Earners’ Account, which ACC’s own Annual Report identifies as operating below its funding target. The funding ratios for the Work and Motor Vehicle Accounts remain above the funding policy target of 100%, while the Earners’ and non-levied accounts are below this level. Rising home injury costs are adding to, rather than reducing, the cost pressure on accounts already below their funding targets.
ACC accepted more than 20,000 burns-related injury claims in 2025 – the highest count since 2021 – at a total recovery cost exceeding $40 million, the highest five-year expenditure on burns. The scheme disbursed 35,815 days of weekly compensation for those injuries at a further cost of more than $5 million. Whether the 2025 figure represents a reversal or continuation of an intermediate trend cannot be confirmed, as ACC’s published sources do not disaggregate burn claim volumes for the years between 2021 and 2025.
Children aged 0 to 4 years lodged 2,570 burn-related claims in 2025, with associated costs of $5.2 million – the highest volume and cost of any age group. The 35-to-39 and 30-to-34 brackets followed at 1,495 and 1,476 claims respectively. Based on ACC’s published figures, the average cost per burn claim in the under-five cohort was approximately $2,023 – a severity marker derived from those two figures rather than a separately published ACC statistic.
Food and drink preparation was the activity most commonly associated with a burn injury at 3,195 claims, ahead of employment-related tasks at 1,092. The hand and wrist was the most frequently injured body site at 5,840 claims, followed by the lower leg at 3,224 and the arm at 2,740. ACC injury prevention leader James Whitaker identified the domestic patterns behind the data. “Most injuries are predictable and therefore preventable. Every winter, staff in emergency rooms help hundreds of New Zealanders who are badly burnt by hot water bottles or scalding hot drinks,” he said.
The burn figures sit within a broader cost picture under direct government scrutiny. Across all injury categories in 2025, new claims cost ACC approximately $2.2 billion, with ongoing claims from prior years adding a further $4.7 billion. ACC spent $8.1 billion on rehabilitation, treatment, and compensation in the prior year – a 65% increase on the $4.9 billion spent a decade ago. Scheme payments have more than doubled over the past 10 years, with growth accelerating in the last three years, and at the current rate would double again in six years.
Workplace injuries in 2025 generated 4.7 million days of weekly compensation at a cost of $815 million. Road injuries, while representing less than 2% of total claims, accounted for 11% of overall scheme costs at an average per-claim cost of $14,500 – approximately 10 times that of a sports injury and three times that of a workplace injury.
Employment-related burn claims – 1,092 in 2025 – feed directly into an employer’s record under ACC’s Experience Rating programme. From the 2026 levy year, the minimum threshold for medical and treatment costs included in the Experience Rating programme increased from $500 to $750, and businesses in the programme face up to a 50% discount or a 100% increase on their Work levy based on claims history. Changes introduced from April 1, 2026, were designed to keep ACC fair and sustainable and to fund care for work-related injuries.
Beyond the home, commercial, and service locations recorded 1,341 burn claims in 2025, and industrial settings recorded 685. Employers in food service, manufacturing, and industrial classification units carry the most direct levy exposure from those figures under the Experience Rating framework.
Auckland recorded the highest volume of burns-related claims in 2025 at 7,046, followed by Canterbury at 2,448, Waikato at 2,195, and Wellington at 1,573 – with Auckland’s total representing approximately 35% of all burn claims nationally.
The turnaround plan released in January 2026 responded to the Finity review into ACC’s claims management approach and an updated Letter of Expectation from Minister for ACC Scott Simpson, targeting improved rehabilitation performance and more cost-effective support for injured people.
ACC’s Statement of Intent 2026-2030 sets out two performance scenarios, both targeting a return of the scheme’s overall financial position to surplus by 2030, contingent on delivering what the document describes as best-ever rehabilitation performance levels. For levy payers and employers in high-exposure classification units, that target carries direct commercial relevance: if rehabilitation performance falls short of either scenario, the pressure to adjust levy rates in subsequent review cycles increases.
The 2025 burn data presents a category where frequency is at a five-year high, cost is concentrated in the under-five demographic, the dominant risk environment sits in accounts operating below their funding targets, and the regulatory frame governing the scheme is under active revision – conditions that point toward continued claims pressure through the current levy cycle and beyond.
