Personal injury / Claims process
How a personal injury claim works in Queensland
Most personal injury claims in Queensland never reach a courtroom. That is not an accident of practice. It is how the legislation is designed. The parties are required to exchange information, obtain medical evidence and meet face to face before proceedings can be started, and by the time all of that has happened, most claims have resolved.
We’ve set out the sequence below. It is written in general terms, because three different schemes apply depending on how you were injured, and the detail differs between them.
First: which scheme applies to you
Queensland does not have one personal injury system. It has three, and the first question in any claim is which one your claim falls under.
Injured in a motor vehicle accident:
Your claim is made under the compulsory third party scheme, against the CTP insurer of the vehicle at fault. Governed by the Motor Accident Insurance Act 1994 (Qld).
Injured at work:
You are in the workers’ compensation scheme, against WorkCover Queensland or a self-insured employer. Governed by the Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 (Qld). This scheme has two distinct stages, and they work quite differently from one another. We’re only dealing with a common law claim below.
Injured any other way:
In a shop, on a footpath, at a venue, or through medical treatment. The Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 (Qld) applies. This is the general scheme, and the one the others are broadly modelled on.
The stages below describe the general pattern. Where a scheme departs from it significantly, the claim-type pages explain how.
Stage 1: Notice of claim
Nothing happens until formal notice is given.
Each scheme has an approved form, and each requires the notice to go to a particular party: the CTP insurer, the workers’ compensation insurer, or the person or organisation you say is responsible. The form asks for an account of what happened, who you say is at fault and why, what injuries you suffered, and what treatment you have had.
Getting the notice right matters beyond simply meeting the deadline. What you say at this stage sets the frame for everything that follows, and inconsistencies between the notice and later evidence are often relied on by insurers.
Stage 2: The response
Once notice is given, the party receiving it has to respond within a specified time period.
What the insurer or respondent has to deal with in this response is essentially procedural: whether they accept they’re the right party to be dealing with, and whether your notice was given properly and complies with what the legislation requires.
Stage 3: Investigation and disclosure
Both sides have to put their cards on the table. This step works to a claimant’s advantage more often than not.
You will be required to provide documents about your injuries, your treatment, your employment, and your income. The other side will be required to disclose what they hold about the incident: incident reports, maintenance records, witness statements, and internal correspondence.
Stage 4: Liability response
Whether the other side admits or denies responsibility for what happened. It comes after compliance is resolved and runs to its own timetable.
A denial is not the end of anything. It can be tactical, and it is often made on thin information. Positions shift as evidence comes in, and a claim denied at this stage can still resolve for its full value.
Stage 5: Medical evidence
Your claim will be assessed largely on medical evidence, and there will usually be more than one opinion.
You will be examined by one or more specialists, some chosen by us and some by the insurer. Their reports address what your injuries are, whether they were caused by the incident, how much permanent impairment you are left with, what treatment you are likely to need, and what work you can realistically do.
This stage takes longer than clients expect. Specialist appointments are booked months ahead, and a claim should not be finalised until your condition has stabilised enough for someone to say what the long-term position is. Settling before that point means guessing, and the guess is usually low.
Stage 6: Compulsory conference
Before proceedings can be started, the parties must attend a compulsory conference.
Everyone with authority to settle attends. Both sides put their case, the strengths and weaknesses get aired, and there is a genuine attempt to resolve the claim. It is not a hearing and there is no judge. It is a structured negotiation, held at a point where each side knows what the other has.
Most claims settle at or shortly after this conference. That is the legislative design working as intended.
Stage 7: Mandatory final offers
If the conference does not resolve the claim, each side has to exchange a ‘final’ offer in writing.
The name is misleading. It isn’t the last offer anyone can make, and claims often settle afterwards on different terms. But it matters, because it can change your net position if the matter ends up at trial.
Stage 8: Court, if it comes to that
If the claim does not resolve, proceedings are started. There is a period after the compulsory conference within which that has to happen.
Even then, most matters settle before trial. Filing proceedings changes the pressure on both sides and often produces a resolution that the conference did not.
How compensation is worked out
Damages in a Queensland personal injury claim are not a single figure. They are built from separate heads of damage, each calculated differently. Which heads are available depends on the type of claim, because the schemes don’t all compensate the same things, with some being narrower than others. Treat what follows as the general picture rather than a list of what you’ll get.
General damages:
For pain, suffering and loss of amenity. In Queensland these damages are capped. Your injury is assigned an Injury Scale Value on a statutory scale, and the ISV converts to a dollar figure by a prescribed formula. This is why general damages are often lower than people expect from media reporting of interstate or overseas cases.
Past economic loss:
Income you have already lost, plus the superannuation that would have been paid on it.
Future economic loss:
The harder head, and often the largest. It looks at what you would have earned over your working life had you not been injured, against what you can realistically earn now. It accounts for promotion you will not get and work you can no longer do.
Past and future medical and related expenses:
Treatment, medication, surgery, rehabilitation, aids and equipment.
Care and assistance:
Help with the things you can no longer do for yourself. Care provided free by family can be compensable in some circumstances.
Interest:
On some heads, in some claims.
Set against all of that is contributory negligence:
The extent to which your own conduct contributed to the injury. If contributory negligence is assessed at a percentage, damages are reduced by it.
How long it takes
The honest answer is how long is a piece of string, which is unsatisfying, and true.
A claim can’t sensibly be finished until your medical position is clear, and nobody knows in the first month how long that will take. Someone who recovers as expected is on one timeline. Someone who turns out to need surgery eighteen months in is on another entirely.
For a sense of scale rather than a promise: a straightforward claim resolving at the compulsory conference commonly runs twelve to fourteen months from notice to settlement. Serious injuries take longer, sometimes considerably.
The waiting isn’t wasted. Settling before your prognosis is understood is the most common way a claim ends up undervalued.
This page is general information about how the law works in Queensland. It is not legal advice, it does not take account of your circumstances, and it should not be relied on as a substitute for advice about your own claim.