Public Liability Claims From a Car-Park Fall in NZ
- PotholeExpert
- 24 hours ago
- 4 min read
Someone falls in your car park. They catch a toe on a sunken patch near the entrance, go down hard, and end up with a fractured wrist. The first thing many owners think is, "ACC covers that, so we are fine." That instinct is half right and dangerously incomplete. ACC removes one route of exposure. It leaves several others wide open, and the difference between a claim that goes nowhere and one that sticks is almost always your maintenance records.
This walks through how a car-park fall turns into a claim in New Zealand, and the paper trail that gets it declined.
Why ACC does not make you immune
New Zealand's no-fault accident scheme bars most personal-injury lawsuits. The injured person generally cannot sue you for damages for the injury itself, the way they might overseas. That is real protection and worth understanding. But it is not a shield against everything that flows from the fall.
PCBU prosecution. ACC is a separate system from health and safety law. If the fall reveals you failed your duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 to control a known hazard so far as is reasonably practicable, WorkSafe can investigate and prosecute. Fines for a duty breach run well into six figures, and ACC cover does nothing to stop it.
Reputational damage. A fall outside your shop, a one-star review with a photo of the pothole, a story that spreads on local pages. No insurer covers that.
Property damage and economic loss. ACC covers personal injury, not damage to property. A vehicle bent on a sunken edge, or a delivery operator's claim for damage, sits outside the scheme.
Levy and premium consequences. Incidents feed into the cost of cover over time.
So "ACC has it" answers one question and leaves the expensive ones open.
What a public-liability insurer asks for after a fall
When a fall is notified, your PL insurer moves quickly to work out whether you were reasonable. Expect a near-identical set of questions every time.
When was this area last inspected, and by whom?
Did you know about this defect before the fall? If so, for how long?
What did you do once you knew? When?
Do you have a maintenance schedule, and were you keeping to it?
Can you produce dated evidence of the defect and the repair?
Notice what every question is really probing: your knowledge and your response. Insurers are not testing whether your car park was perfect. They are testing whether you behaved like a reasonable operator who manages a known risk. The answers live in your records, or they do not exist.
The paper trail that gets a claim declined
A claim is far more likely to be defended, or never proceed, when you can hand over a clean trail:
A dated inspection log showing you walk the surface on a schedule.
A dated photo of the defect from when you first logged it.
A record of make-safe action (cone, tape, cold-mix) showing you responded immediately.
A fixed-price quote with its date, showing you moved to a permanent fix.
A completion record with a dated after photo proving the hazard was removed.
Put that in front of an insurer and the story tells itself: you inspected, you found it, you made it safe, you fixed it, and you documented every step. That is a reasonable operator. The claim has little to grip on.
The defects behind real falls
Falls cluster around a handful of conditions, and they are the ones to hunt for on inspection.
Edge ravelling. Asphalt frays at a kerb or join, leaving loose stones and a crumbling lip right where people step out of cars.
Sunken patches. An old repair settles below grade and creates a shallow trap, often invisible until you are on top of it.
Unmarked level changes. A step between slabs or a tree-root heave with no paint, no contrast, no warning.
Potholes on walked lines. Open holes near doors and bays, the textbook ankle-roller.
What these share: they are gradual, predictable, and fixable before anyone falls. That is exactly why "we didn't know" is such a weak position.
Why "we didn't know" is the weakest defence
Telling an insurer you had no idea the defect existed sounds like it removes blame. It does the opposite. A degraded surface develops over months. A reasonable operator running a workplace is expected to inspect and would have found it. "We didn't know" usually translates to "we weren't looking," which is itself a failure to manage the risk.
A simple, dated inspection log flips this entirely. Instead of pleading ignorance, you show a system: regular walks, logged defects, defects actioned. You move from "we didn't know" to "we knew, and here is what we did." That is the difference between exposure and a defence.
For the underlying legal duty, see our car park repair guide, and for the permanent fix method on the holes themselves, our pothole repair page.
How a fixed-price repair history shows active hazard control
A run of dated, fixed-price repairs over a year is more than a stack of invoices. It is evidence of an active hazard-control programme: a business that finds defects and removes them, not one that waits for a fall.
Our process is built to produce that evidence. You photograph the defect; we return a fixed quote within 24 hours and typically book inside 48. We saw-cut back to sound asphalt and seal the joints, so the repair holds rather than reopening each winter and re-creating the hazard you thought you had dealt with. For live car parks we run cones and a spotter and work after-hours where needed. Every job carries a 12-month workmanship warranty and ends with a dated before/after photo report. Filed alongside your inspection log, that report is one of the cleanest pieces of evidence you can hand an insurer.
Worried about a fall on a surface you control? Photograph the defect and get a fixed quote. You will have a price in 24 hours, a booking inside 48, and a dated record that strengthens every future claim conversation.
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