The only specialised marine publication in Oceania that focuses on the maritime industry, from super yachts to small craft to large commercial ships, including coastal shipping, tugs, tow boats, barges, ferries, tourist, sport-fishing craft
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NZMTA NEWS ACCIDENT COMPENSATION COMMISSION BY ALAN MOORE T he Marine Transport Association says it has organised an exceptional deal that will save its members heaps of money on their annual Acccident Compensation Corporation payments. The concept is called ACC Cover Plus Extra, and switching to this arrangement is seen as semi-privatising your ACC cover. It is exclusive to MTA members and is only available through Town & Country Brokers Ltd. Here is an example of how this semi-privatising works. An operator and his partner (with an ACC Cu. code of 63031) declare $75,000 income a year each to Inland Revenue and currently pay $4233 each, a total of $8466 per annum to ACC for their Cover Plus policy. If either of them has an accident, ACC will pay them $60,000 less tax a year. When the new account comes into force, the amount IRD pay is down to the bare benefit minimum of $21,632 a year. This reduces the premium to $2093 each, a total of $4186 which creates a saving of $4280. But there is more. If she works in the office, not on the boat, her ACC cu code now becomes one for administration, which reduces her levies to just $803 a year. The pair have now saved $5523. If they use part of these savings to take out private income protection insurance, that will pay them both an income if they are off work, regardless of whether it is for injury or illness. The costs of this depend on the extent of the cover but it is a much more effective arrangement at a cheaper cost. Town & Country is telling members, "If you want an income when you are unable to work, you had better hope you have an accident and not a heart attack, because most insurance companies don't want to cover your risk." At last, after lengthy negotiations, they have found an insurance company prepared to take on the marine industry's personal and business risk insurance. AIA, the association's newest sponsor, is only offering this Protection Plan to members of the association and the offer closes at the end of March 2012. The brokers have offices in the North and South Island, we also have access to a team of qualified advisers in place throughout the country who have training in making these alterations for you. THE MOSS MESS The policy people at Maritime New Zealand are still hell bent on ensuring that MOSS, the maritime operator safety system, will determine the way the industry operates for the foreseeable future. This is despite the industry consistently telling the regulator they believe the existing safe ship mangement system simply needed a bit of tweaking and not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The industry has been saying slack interpretation and implementation of the rules are the main cause of the failures that have occurred over recent times. Some of the key frustrations have included constant shifting of the goalposts through ever-changing maritime rules or poor interpretation of the rules, questionable standards and an apparent lack of respect and understanding of our industry's needs by Maritime NZ. 68 Professional Skipper January/February 2012 To this end, Maritime NZ has advised that safe ship management has not worked and major change is required, pointing the finger of blame squarely at SSM companies and its surveyors. They further claim the safety culture of the coastal and restricted limits industry has not improved, inconsistent standards, poor reporting and/or management of vessels has been rife and demonstrated a need for change. A reduction in serious harm incidents and the number of deaths in the passenger sectors, and a better reporting culture, has been ignored. The fact that Maritime NZ launched SSM in 1998 and all the SSM companies were left to their own devices to interpret the Maritime Rules, with very little guidance being given, has been conveniently ignored. It took over three years for the new rules to be issued. Effectively, no prescribed rules or procedures existed, so surveyors relied on their own implementation based on their experience. This is now one of Maritime NZ's greatest concerns. They have identified rogue surveyors and dodgy SSM companies as they have set about a change with the pending introduction of MOSS. Some companies chose to get out of SSM for their own valid reasons and Maritime NZ set about a campaign, at huge expense, to close down one of the providers. Rightly or wrongly, this legal process saw the demise of that organisation due to lack of funds to defend themselves. Maritime NZ simply had deeper pockets. The authority is clearly determined to change the system and this has the maritime industry nervous. The industry accepts improvements are needed, but is MOSS the answer? We know MOSS offers some excellent concepts for operators, but it also means another massive change for our industry. The concept of certifying vessels separately from operators makes good sense. Additionally, removing oversized SSM manuals from vessels, and placing the responsibility on the owner or company director also makes lots of sense. However, the devil will be in the detail and in implementating the system. The success and viability of MOSS depends on one major element, government resources. MOSS needs a huge audit group and a new technical and administrative team. At a time when New Zealand is reducing government spending, this funding can only be achieved through the "user pays" system and when this is done without commercial competition it introduces a cost-plus philosophy. We are aware that Maritime NZ intends to appoint two new surveyors who are purportedly there to provide technical advice and oversee surveyor standards. We understand there will be further appointments on the basis that these people will provide surveyor services when an operator cannot get satisfaction from one of the independent surveyors. This flies in the face of what the Minister of Transport clearly set out about Maritime NZ employing surveyors and begs the question of what is motivating Maritime NZ in the system. MOSS has been sold to the industry as being cheaper than SSM because responsibilities will lie more with the operator, thus reducing costs. It would now appear that given the Value for Money Review and the subsequent appointment of the Sector Reference Group, Maritime NZ's costing structure is significantly out of line with its cost recovery, and it is anticipated the services