Levy round

ACC's self-employed cover ceiling is $125,313, and a $200,000 earner can insure only 63% of their income

Source: ACC, CoverPlus Extra (CPX) cover options

ACC's CoverPlus Extra stops at $125,313 for 2026/27. That is exactly 80% of $156,641, the most income ACC charges levies on. Earn more than $167,084 and a standard private income protection policy can cover more of your income than ACC will at any price.

By Henry Smith · ACC · 2026-07-27

What this means for you Self-employed people earning above $156,641 cannot insure more than $125,313 of income through ACC, whatever they pay. That covers 80% of income at the cap, but only 50% of a $250,000 income. The gap against a typical 75% private policy opens at $167,084 and widens with every dollar above it.

If you work for yourself, ACC will not insure an income above $125,313 for the 2026/27 year (ACC, retrieved 20 August 2026). Earn more than that and the rest of your income simply cannot be covered by ACC.

That maximum is exactly 80% of $156,641, which is the most income ACC charges levies on (ACC, retrieved 20 August 2026). A levy is ACC's version of a premium: the yearly bill that pays for your cover. ACC's page states the maximum. It never says where the number comes from, and never says what it leaves out.

For higher earners, it leaves out a lot. A contractor on $200,000 can lock in cover for at most 62.7% of what they earn. At $250,000 that share falls to 50.1%. A typical private income protection policy covers 75% at either income.

What did ACC publish on 27 July?

CoverPlus Extra, or CPX, is ACC's optional cover for self-employed people. It also covers company owners who pay themselves outside PAYE, the system where tax comes out of every payslip. Normally ACC works out your payout from your accounts after an accident. With CPX you agree a fixed amount of cover up front instead. The product page was last published on 27 July 2026, and it carries the new range for the levy year: "For the 2026/27 year the minimum is $40,401.00 and the maximum is $125,313.00" (ACC, retrieved 20 August 2026).

The page sets out who qualifies. You need to be self-employed, or a shareholder paid outside PAYE. You need to be declaring income ACC can charge levies on. And you need to work 30 hours a week or more. Work fewer hours and you still qualify if you earn above the CPX minimum.

It also describes two ways of being paid. One tapers off, one does not. Under the option ACC calls "lower levels of weekly compensation", payments shrink as your hours or your income come back. ACC's example: "if your cover is $52,000 per year, we'll pay 100% of this amount (before tax) until you return to part-time work or if your business continues to generate income". Under full compensation, ACC pays "100% of the agreed cover (before tax), divided into weekly payments until you are no longer incapacitated" (same source). Incapacitated means unable to work because of the injury.

Where does the $125,313 ceiling come from?

Standard CoverPlus is the cover self-employed people get by default. It pays "up to 80% of your earnings you've declared, or intend to declare, with Inland Revenue before your injury" (ACC, retrieved 20 August 2026). Those declared earnings have a name: your liable earnings, the income ACC charges levies on. For 2026/27 they stop at $156,641 (ACC, retrieved 20 August 2026). Anything you earn above that line is ignored.

Multiply ACC's levy limits by that 80% rate and you get the CPX range, to the dollar.

	ACC's levy figure	Times 80%	Published CPX limit
Maximum	$156,641 earnings cap	$125,312.80	$125,313
Minimum	$50,501 minimum full-time income	$40,400.80	$40,401

Levy figures from ACC, Calculating your levies; CPX limits from the ACC CPX page, both retrieved 20 August 2026. Each multiplication rounds up to the next whole dollar.

So both ends of the CPX range are just ACC's levy limits with the 80% rule applied. CPX is sold as the product where you choose your own cover amount. But the biggest number you can choose is what the default cover would pay someone sitting right at the earnings cap.

How much of my income can I actually insure?

Divide $125,313 by your income and the ceiling becomes a share of what you earn. At the cap itself it is the full 80%. Every dollar you earn above the cap shrinks that share, because the cover stays frozen while your income grows. In weekly terms, the most ACC will ever pay a self-employed person is about $2,410 a week before tax ($125,313 divided by 52), whatever they earned.

Chart: QuoteHub arithmetic on ACC's published CPX maximum and liable-earnings cap (ACC CPX page and ACC, Calculating your levies, both retrieved 20 August 2026). Illustration of the ceiling arithmetic only, not a quote and not advice.

Annual income	Maximum CPX cover	Share of income ACC will insure	Share a typical private policy insures
$156,641 (the levy cap)	$125,313	80.0%	75%
$175,000	$125,313	71.6%	75%
$200,000	$125,313	62.7%	75%
$250,000	$125,313	50.1%	75%
$300,000	$125,313	41.8%	75%

QuoteHub arithmetic on the ACC CPX maximum and the $156,641 liable-earnings cap, both retrieved 20 August 2026. The 75% column is the ceiling in AIA's income protection policy wording (effective 23 July 2021, retrieved 20 August 2026), used as a market-standard reference.

Why does ACC cap it there?

The ceiling is not meanness. It mirrors what you pay in. ACC charges the earners' levy at $1.75 per $100 of liable earnings, GST included, and stops charging at the same $156,641 cap (Inland Revenue, retrieved 20 August 2026).

So the biggest earners' levy bill anyone gets is $2,741.22 a year (same Inland Revenue figures, retrieved 20 August 2026). Someone on $250,000 pays exactly that, and so does someone on $156,641. The $93,359 between them is invisible to ACC. No levy is charged on it, and no compensation is ever paid on it. Inside the scheme the books balance. Outside it, the risk sits with the earner.

How does a private policy compare?

A private income protection policy usually runs on an indemnity basis, which works differently. Indemnity means the insurer checks what you were actually earning when you claim, then pays a share of it. In AIA's current policy wording that share is 75%. Each month the insurer pays whichever is smaller: one twelfth of the amount on your policy schedule, or "75% x pre-disability income". It then subtracts offsets, meaning other payments you get for the same disability (AIA policy wording, effective 23 July 2021, retrieved 20 August 2026). Here is the difference from CPX: that 75% is a share of your real income, with no $125,313 ceiling sitting behind it.

Set the two side by side and the gap is plain.

Annual income	What a 75% policy can insure	ACC's CPX maximum	Cover only a private policy can reach
$200,000	$150,000	$125,313	$24,687 a year (12.3% of income)
$250,000	$187,500	$125,313	$62,187 a year (24.9% of income)

QuoteHub arithmetic on the ACC CPX maximum and the 75% ceiling in AIA's policy wording, both retrieved 20 August 2026. The crossover sits at $167,084 of income, which is $125,313 divided by 0.75.

Below that crossover, CPX's 80%-of-the-cap ceiling can still match or beat a 75% policy. Above it, ACC falls behind with every dollar you earn, and there is no levy you can pay to fix that.

What does this mean for my cover?

Earn under roughly $156,641 and the ceiling is not your problem. What CPX buys you at that level is certainty. ACC pays the agreed amount without going back through your accounts at claim time. That matters if your income is lumpy, or your business is young. So the choice between CPX and a private income protection policy turns on two other things: what each one counts as being unable to work, and how long each keeps paying.

Earn above $167,084 and the arithmetic above is your problem. It has two parts.

The first is size. ACC will not insure more than $125,313 of your income, whatever you are willing to pay.

The second is scope. ACC weekly compensation only follows an injury (ACC, retrieved 20 August 2026). An illness that stops you working sits outside the scheme entirely. Cancer, a heart attack, a breakdown: ACC pays nothing. That ground belongs to private income protection and trauma cover.

One thing cuts the other way. A private indemnity policy subtracts whatever ACC pays you. AIA's worked example lists "ACC entitlements for the same disability" as a deduction from the private benefit (AIA policy wording, retrieved 20 August 2026). You cannot stack the two and collect both in full. So the job is sizing the private layer that sits on top of whatever ACC will actually pay, and that is worth comparing across insurers rather than inside one.

What we could not check

ACC's CPX page publishes the $40,401 to $125,313 range but never explains it. The link to 80% of the cap is our own arithmetic. We built it from ACC's published compensation rate and its published earnings limits. Each multiplication rounds up by 20 cents to the next whole dollar. ACC may describe the mechanics differently in its levy regulations, which we have not read.

Our levy figures come from Inland Revenue, not ACC. ACC's own levy results page quotes the 2026/27 earners' levy as $1.52 per $100 (ACC, retrieved 20 August 2026). That is the same rate, quoted before GST. Adding GST multiplies it by 1.15, so $1.52 becomes $1.748, which is the $1.75 Inland Revenue publishes. We used the GST-inclusive figures because they are what earners actually pay.

The 75% private ceiling comes from one insurer's policy wording, dated 23 July 2021. It is a market convention, not a rule. Other insurers' terms differ. So do agreed-value contracts, which fix the payout up front instead of checking your income at claim time. Some products cover a smaller share at higher incomes.

We make no claim about what any private policy costs, and we make no price comparison between CPX and private cover. CPX levies are worked out on the agreed cover amount, and we have not analysed them.

One last limit. ACC's page does not say whether it will agree to cover more income than you can actually show. So we have treated $125,313 as the most anyone can get, not an amount everyone can have.

Sources

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