In this video, Senior Associate Jessica Prasser talks about the important time limits in your NSW workers’ compensation.
Important time limitations involved in a New South Wales workers’ compensation claim
Transcript
Hi, I’m Jessica Prasser, and I’m a senior associate here at Bourke Legal. Today, I’m going to be speaking to you about the very important time limitations involved in a New South Wales workers’ compensation claim. A workers’ compensation claim in New South Wales is required to be lodged within six months of the injury occurring or the date of death.
It is therefore very important that as soon after your injury as possible, you attend your general practitioner and obtain a New South Wales, work cover certificate of capacity, and you also obtain and fill out a workers’ compensation claim form, which can be accessed through the SIRA website and send it on to your employer as soon as possible.
The insurer can accept a claim outside of the six-month time frame. However, it’s not guaranteed, so it is certainly recommended that you do your best to submit it within the six months. If you are outside of the six-month period and you have not lodged a claim, please come and see us at Bourke Legal so we can discuss the prospects of you lodging a late claim.
Lodging a claim outside of the six months does not bar you from receiving compensation if the lateness is due to ignorance, mistake, absence from the state or some other type of reasonable excuse, and that the claim is lodged within three years of the injury occurring, or if outside of that three years, it is in relation to an injury that has resulted in serious and permanent disablement of you.
Another really important time limitation for you to be aware of is that a claim for work injury damages, which is a claim for negligence against your employer, is required to be lodged within three years of your injury occurring. However, you are also required to be assessed or agreed at 15% whole person impairment in order to lodge that claim.
There are therefore circumstances when a person cannot lodge the claim within three years, even if they wanted to, because, for example, they are not medically stable, and therefore, they cannot have their whole-person impairment assessment.
It is therefore very important to speak to a lawyer so that you can understand whether you can bring your claim outside of the three years, and if so, the lawyer can do whatever possible to try and protect your time limitation.
For you to bring a claim outside of three years for a claim for working in damages, leave is required to be sought from the court before the case can be taken any further. This is another thing that we can speak to you about at Bourke legal.
So, please give us a call so we can talk to you about your very important New South Wales workers’ compensation time limits.