Tower Insurance just warned that weather-related claims will nearly halve its profits. Houses, cars, businesses. all getting hammered by more frequent extreme weather. But here's the number nobody's connecting: New Zealand workplaces recorded 400,836 serious non-fatal injuries in 2024, the highest in at least 24 years. (Source: Stats NZ / ACC, fatal-serious-injuries)

That's an increase of more than 38,000 injuries in just four years. In 2020, the figure was 362,685. By 2024, it had jumped past 400,000. And while Tower is tallying up storm damage to homes, a significant portion of those workplace injuries are happening in exactly the industries most exposed to New Zealand's worsening weather: construction, agriculture, forestry.

The contrast is stark. Insurers are screaming about climate risk to property. Nobody's talking about climate risk to workers.

Construction sites flood. Farm tracks turn to mud. Forestry operations shut down in high winds, then rush to catch up when conditions ease. Every one of those scenarios increases injury risk. Slips, falls, equipment failures, rushed decisions. The data doesn't break out weather-related workplace injuries specifically, but the trajectory matches: as extreme weather events increase, so do serious injuries at work.

And "serious" here has a specific meaning. ACC defines serious injuries as those requiring more than a week off work or resulting in permanent impairment. We're not talking about minor strains. These are injuries that change lives, cost jobs, burden families.

The financial cost is enormous. ACC pays out billions annually for workplace injuries. Employers face higher levies. Workers lose income, sometimes permanently. Yet while insurance companies are repricing home and business policies to reflect climate reality, workplace safety regulations haven't caught up to the new weather normal.

Tower can raise premiums, tighten coverage, walk away from high-risk properties. Workers in exposed industries don't have that option. You can't just stop building houses or farming because the weather's worse. You show up, and you deal with it.

The last four years tell the story clearly. Injuries climbed by 9,000 between 2020 and 2021. Another 22,000 between 2021 and 2022. They plateaued briefly in 2023, then jumped another 7,000 in 2024. That's not a blip. That's a trend.

So when Tower talks about weather claims hammering its bottom line, remember: those same weather patterns are hammering workers too. The difference is, Tower gets to adjust its business model. Workers just get hurt more often.