New Zealand Income Insurance Scheme (NZIIS)

Early in 2022 the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) announced plans for an income insurance scheme. The proposed scheme would pay New Zealand workers up 80% of their salary or wage for up to 7 months in the event they are made redundant or cannot continue to work due to illness of injury, with the option of extending to 12 months if an individual is undergoing retraining or rehabilitation.

The scheme will be managed by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and will be funded in a similar way to the current ACC employer and earner levies; that is, there would be an employer contribution and an employee contribution component, initially set at 1.39% of liable earnings.

The scheme was originally proposed to take effect in late 2023 and legislation has been passed to allow the ACC to begin the necessary implementation work. However, the New Zealand government has indicated that the commencement of the scheme will be deferred to allow the design of the scheme to be defined with the appropriate level of detail. It is tentatively scheduled to take effect on 1 April 2025.

FastTrack will continue to monitor the progress of the scheme and will provide updates as more information becomes available.