Plain language law

New Zealand law explained for everyone

Accident Compensation Act 2001

Cover - Key terms relating to cover

30: Personal injury caused by work-related gradual process, disease, or infection

You could also call this:

"Work injuries that happen slowly over time"

You can get cover for a personal injury caused by a work-related gradual process, disease, or infection. This means an injury that happens slowly over time because of your job.

To be covered, your injury must be caused by something specific about your job tasks or work environment. This could be a certain characteristic of your work that caused or helped cause your injury. It doesn't have to be present all the time you're at work.

If the same thing that caused your injury at work is also present in your non-work activities, it needs to be more likely that your work caused the injury rather than your non-work activities.

However, even if your injury seems to be work-related, the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) might not cover it if they can show that people doing your job or working in your type of environment don't have a much higher risk of getting that injury compared to other people.

Some types of work-related injuries are automatically covered if they're listed in Schedule 2 of the Act and you work in a job that exposes you to the things mentioned in that list.

ACC will investigate claims for work-related gradual process injuries at their own expense.

This Act only covers work-related gradual process injuries if the exposure happened in New Zealand, or if you normally lived in New Zealand when the exposure happened.

The Act doesn't cover injuries related to non-physical stress or certain types of hearing loss that were already compensated under an older law.

If you were exposed to something at work before 1 April 1974, you might still be covered, but there are some exceptions.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

This page was last updated on

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM100926.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Worker rightsWork and jobs > Workplace safetyHealth and wellbeing > Healthcare services
Previous

29: Personal injury that is both work-related and motor vehicle injury, or

"When you get hurt at work and in a car: deciding what type of injury it is"

Next

31: Ministerial advisory panel on work-related gradual process, disease, or infection, or

"A group that helped with slow-developing work health problems no longer exists"

Part 2Cover
Key terms relating to cover

30Personal injury caused by work-related gradual process, disease, or infection

  1. Personal injury caused by a work-related gradual process, disease, or infection means personal injury—

  2. suffered by a person; and
    1. caused by a gradual process, disease, or infection; and
      1. caused in the circumstances described in subsection (2).

        1. Subsection (1)(c) is subject to subsection (2A).

        2. Repealed

        3. The circumstances are—

        4. the person—
          1. performs an employment task that has a particular property or characteristic; or
            1. is employed in an environment that has a particular property or characteristic; and
            2. the particular property or characteristic—
              1. causes, or contributes to the cause of, the personal injury; and
                  1. may or may not be present throughout the whole of the person's employment; and
                  2. that, if the particular property or characteristic is present in both the person’s employment tasks or environment and non-employment activities or environment, it is more likely that the person’s personal injury was caused as a result of the employment tasks or environment rather than the non-employment activities or environment.

                    1. However, even if it is established that a claimant’s personal injury was caused in the circumstances described in subsection (2), the Corporation may decline the claim if the Corporation establishes that the risk of suffering the personal injury is not significantly greater for persons who—

                    2. perform the employment task than it is for persons who do not perform it; or
                      1. are employed in that type of environment than it is for persons who are not.

                        1. Repealed

                        2. Personal injury caused by a work-related gradual process, disease, or infection includes personal injury that is—

                        3. of a type described in Schedule 2; and
                          1. suffered by a person who is or has been in employment—
                            1. that involves exposure, or the prescribed level or extent of exposure, to agents, dusts, compounds, substances, radiation, or things (as the case may be) described in that schedule in relation to that type of personal injury; or
                              1. in an occupation, industry, or process described in that schedule in relation to that type of personal injury.

                              2. To avoid doubt, where a claim is lodged for cover for a work-related gradual process, disease, or infection, section 57 applies to require, among other things, the Corporation to investigate the claim at its own expense.

                              3. Personal injury of a type described in subsection (3) does not require an assessment of causation under subsection (1)(b) or (c).

                              4. This Act covers personal injury caused by a work-related gradual process, disease, or infection only if—

                              5. the exposure to the gradual process, disease, or infection actually occurred in New Zealand; or
                                1. the person concerned was ordinarily resident in New Zealand when the exposure actually occurred.

                                  1. Personal injury caused by a work-related gradual process, disease, or infection does not include—

                                  2. personal injury related to non-physical stress; or
                                    1. any degree of deafness for which compensation has been paid under the Workers' Compensation Act 1956.

                                      1. Subsection (7) applies if, before 1 April 1974, the person—

                                      2. performed an employment task that had a particular property or characteristic; or
                                        1. was employed in an environment that had a particular property or characteristic.

                                          1. The circumstances referred to in subsection (6) do not prevent the person's personal injury from being personal injury caused by a work-related gradual process, disease, or infection, but he or she does not have cover for it if section 24 or section 361 applies to him or her.

                                          Notes
                                          • Section 30(1A): inserted, on , by section 9(1) of the Accident Compensation (Maternal Birth Injury and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2022 (2022 No 51).
                                          • Section 30(1A): repealed, on , by section 9(1) of the Accident Compensation Amendment Act 2010 (2010 No 1).
                                          • Section 30(2)(b)(ii): repealed, on , by section 9(2) of the Accident Compensation (Maternal Birth Injury and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2022 (2022 No 51).
                                          • Section 30(2)(c): replaced, on , by section 9(3) of the Accident Compensation (Maternal Birth Injury and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2022 (2022 No 51).
                                          • Section 30(2A): inserted, on , by section 9(4) of the Accident Compensation (Maternal Birth Injury and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2022 (2022 No 51).
                                          • Section 30(2A): repealed, on , by section 9(4) of the Accident Compensation Amendment Act 2010 (2010 No 1).
                                          • Section 30(3): substituted, on , by section 10(5) of the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Act 2008 (2008 No 46).
                                          • Section 30(3A): inserted, on , by section 10(6) of the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Act 2008 (2008 No 46).
                                          • Section 30(4A): inserted, on , by section 12 of the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Act (No 2) 2005 (2005 No 45).