Reduced ACC car levy rates just a click away

  • Craig Foss
  • Nikki Kaye
Transport ACC

ACC Minister Nikki Kaye and Associate Transport Minister Craig Foss say car owners can now visit the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) RightCar website to see the reduced ACC levy they’ll pay from 1 July, when ACC introduces risk rating.

“From 1 July, all car owners will pay a reduced ACC annual licence levy,” says Ms Kaye.

“Levies will also reflect how safe a car is in a crash, and the RightCar site makes it easy to see the specific levy that will apply to your vehicle.

“The levy for petrol cars rated as least safe will fall from around $198 to $158, a cut of around $40. The levy for cars rated the safest falls significantly to $68, a cut of around $130.

“Risk rating is about encouraging awareness of safer vehicles, and making levies more fairly reflect the risk of injury.”

Mr Foss says new information has been added to the RightCar website to coincide with ACC’s introduction of risk rating.

“All you need to do is visit the site and enter your car’s number plate. You can then access full details of your vehicle licensing fee, including the ACC levy details.

“This is a great example of government agencies working together to provide better public services.

“ACC and NZTA have also worked together in the lead-up to the change, alerting car owners to the option of relicensing their vehicle for a shorter time period.

“This enables car owners to makes the most of the ACC levy reductions when they kick in on 1 July.”

You can visit the RightCar website here: http://rightcar.govt.nz/rego.html

Notes:

What is risk rating?
Under risk rating, the annual ACC licence levy (which you pay when you relicense your car) reflects how well your car protects people in a crash.

There are four levy bands, ranging from band 1 (vehicles with the most risk) to band 4 (vehicles with the least risk).

How are cars rated?
Most cars are rated using real life crash data, collected from over 5.5 million police-reported crashes in Australia and New Zealand since 1987.

Newer cars, for which there’s insufficient real life crash data, are rated based on NCAP ratings.

Are only newer cars in the safest levy band?
Cars are rated not on their age, but on how well their design/manufacture influences injury outcomes.

There are many cars more than 10 years old in the safest levy band.