The Accident Compensation Corporation has appointed Sid Miller OBE (pictured) as its next chief executive, selecting a candidate with direct prior experience inside ACC and at the Earthquake Commission (EQC) to lead the scheme through a financial and operational recovery that will shape levy costs for New Zealand employers, workers, and motorists for years to come. Miller’s appointment follows an international recruitment process. He will return to New Zealand from working internationally and begin in the role on September 21. Deputy chief executive for corporate and finance Stewart McRobie will serve as acting chief executive in the interim.
The appointment comes at a point of structural financial pressure for the scheme. ACC’s outstanding claims liability has reached $63.6 billion, against an investment fund valued at $51.1 billion, and the corporation has described the financial pressure as requiring urgent action to ensure both the long-term sustainability and intergenerational fairness of the scheme. If the trajectory of recent years continues, ACC projects a funding shortfall of $26.3 billion by 2030, with annual expenditure on rehabilitation and treatment having climbed from $2.1 billion to $4.4 billion – a rate of growth that outpaces both inflation and population change.
That pressure has direct implications for levy payers. Cabinet confirmed in December 2024 that average Work levies paid by employers would rise from $0.63 to $0.66 per $100 of liable earnings in 2025/26, continuing to $0.69 and $0.72 in subsequent years. The Earners’ levy moves from $1.39 to $1.45 per $100 of liable earnings, then to $1.52 and $1.59. The average Motor Vehicle levy rises from $113.94 to $122.84 per vehicle, then $131.94 and $141.69. In any given year, levies are intended to be equivalent to the lifetime cost of rehabilitating those injured in that year, meaning sustained scheme underperformance feeds directly into future levy rounds beyond 2027/28.
ACC chair Jan Dawson framed the appointment within the corporation’s Turnaround Plan, a three-priority reform programme released in January 2026. The plan was developed in response to an independent review by Finity Consulting, an updated letter of expectation from ACC Minister Scott Simpson, a board-commissioned review of organisational culture, and a Treasury-commissioned review of ACC’s investment function. The scheme’s headline metric has moved in the right direction under outgoing chief executive Megan Main. The growth rate of the long-term claims pool – the number of clients receiving weekly compensation for more than a year – turned negative in May at -0.1%, reflecting a net decrease of 68 claims over the month to 24,647. That compares with LTCP growth of 14.5% in January 2025. The annual target is to cap the pool at 24,000.
Return-to-work performance, however, has not fully met targets. Of four return-to-work benchmarks tracked, three fell short of their 2025/26 goals: 36.5% of clients had returned to work at 28 days against a 37% target, 62.1% at 10 weeks against 63%, and 89.6% at nine months against 91%. “ACC has implemented the first phase of its Turnaround Plan and achieved much stronger performance in the last 12 months. But much remains to be done and achieving the organisation’s targets will require a further sustained lift in performance over coming years,” Dawson said.
Miller's professional background spans three sectors relevant to the role. He began his career in the Royal Air Force, rising to Wing Commander and serving as operations manager for the Red Arrows Display Team, before moving into commercial roles in the UK’s National Health Service. He subsequently joined AXA in 2008 as general manager of people, projects, and information systems, leading the integration of AXA and AMP when the two organisations merged in 2011, before joining ACC in 2012. At ACC, he served as general manager of claims management and later as chief customer officer.
He then led EQC for five years from 2017, a tenure that encompassed implementation of all 70 recommendations from Dame Silvia Cartwright’s public inquiry, which described the pre-reform EQC as beset by incompetence, dysfunction, and arrogance. Miller also oversaw the launch of the Insurer Response Model (IRM), a world-first settlement pathway bringing together EQC and private insurers to provide a single point of contact for customers following natural hazard events. EQC chairperson Mary-Jane Daly said at the time of his departure that Miller had “overseen a cultural shift of the organisation that has seen a significant lift in both customer experience and employee engagement.” The parallel to ACC’s current position is direct: both organisations required cultural and operational restructuring under government scrutiny, following external reviews that identified accountability gaps and weakening performance.
Since leaving EQC in March 2022, Miller has been working internationally in the insurance industry, according to ACC’s announcement. The specific roles he held during that period have not been publicly disclosed. To take up the ACC role, he will relinquish a range of advisory roles and directorships across the international insurance industry, retaining one directorship on the board of AA Insurance. Dawson noted that Main would leave ACC at the end of July with improving performance metrics and the corporation well positioned to continue its Turnaround Plan. Miller will be available for media interviews from September 21.
