RESPONSE, ANALYTICS & REPORTING
Official Information Act
Avocado related injuries
To: Mr Brailsford
Request Ref: GOV-008490
Author: Response, Analytics & Reporting
Date: 22/01/2021
Question
ACC Analytics & Reporting received an Of icial Information Act Request:
How many claims were received in 2020 and 2019 involving avocados?
Response
The data have been extracted based on the following criteria:
The claim accident date is between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2020.
The claim cover decision is equal to 'Accept'.
The accident description contains a free text search for: ‘avocado’, ‘avercado’, ‘avocardo’, with
allowances for other spelling variations.
Harvesting avocados includes a search for ‘pick’, ‘harvest’, ‘prun’, ‘lift’, ‘bin’, ‘box’, ‘crate’, ‘tree’, ‘bag’,
‘hydro ladder’, ‘branch’, ‘pack’, ‘orchard’.
Slicing avocados includes a search for ‘slic’, ‘chop’, ‘cutting’, ‘knife’, ‘seed’, ‘stone’, ‘pip’, ‘core’, ‘pit’,
‘stoning’, ‘prepar’, ‘peel’.
Al other avocado related injuries did not contain either of these breakdowns.
Table 1: Number of new claims for avocado related injuries registered between 1 January 2019
and 31 December 2020.
Registration Calendar Year
Key Word Breakdown
2019
2020
Slicing
365
416
Harvesting
119
149
Other
43
61
Total
527
626
Table 2: Number of active claims for avocado related injuries with payments between 1 January
2019 and 31 December 2020.
Payment Calendar Year
Key Word Breakdown
2019
2020
Slicing
355
392
Harvesting
149
186
Other
36
54
Total
540
632
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Table 3: Number of active claim costs for avocado related injuries with payments between 1
January 2019 and 31 December 2020.
Payment Calendar Year
Key Word Breakdown
2019
2020
Slicing
$158,730
$325,582
Harvesting
$206,390
$339,625
Other
$27,356
$14,719
Total
$392,476
$679,926
Caveats / notes on data:
Accredited employer claims have been excluded.
New claims - the claims in these tables have been counted by the date that the claim was registered
with ACC. This can be immediately after the injury occurred or at any later stage.
Active claims – the claims in these rows have been counted when a claim has received a payment in
the relevant calendar year. These claims were not necessarily registered, or had the accident occur, in
the same calendar year. A claim may be active in multiple periods and wil be counted once in each
period it is active.
Costs provided are exclusive of GST.
Costs are based on payment date. Payment date may be different to the date of service.
Costs do not include Public Health Acute Services (PHAS) payments. Treatment for covered claims in
public hospitals is provided by an annual service agreement between ACC and the Ministry of Health,
and is funded by bulk payments from ACC to the Crown.
The accident description is a non-mandatory free-text field on the ACC45 form. The nature and quality
of responses varies. These data should therefore be considered indicative, but not a definitive count of
claims.
Data were extracted on 21 January 2021 and may differ if rerun at a later date.
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