Introduction
If you or a loved one or a friend has been injured in a road accident, it is very important to know your rights and options.
Strict time limits apply and are always enforced by insurance companies if injured people do not commence their claims on time.
Being injured on the road is scary and can be a forever life-changing situation. We aim to provide our clients with prompt, calm and reassuring advice and representation so that they always feel that their rights have been protected and they are receiving all of the legal assistance they need when they are injured, stressed and in need of help.
Insurance companies have significant resources and deep pockets. Our clients do not. We strive to even up the scales of justice and in our clients’ favour to ensure that our clients achieve positive outcomes from their cases, as quickly as possible and cost effectively.
The purpose and function of this guide is to provide easy to understand information regarding your rights and options if you have been injured on the road.
vbr Lawyers has many years of experience, expertise and a strong reputation in road accident compensation. We only practise in personal injury law and our focus is to provide our clients with high quality legal advice, strong advocacy to achieve the best possible outcomes for our clients while keeping the legal costs as low as possible.
A desire to keep the legal costs down is a major priority for our clients. At vbr Lawyers, we share this objective which is why our hourly rates are modest and especially when compared to other firms. We also offer a 30% fee cap on professional costs and unlike many other personal injury law firms, we do not apply a 25% uplift on our professional costs due to acting on a speculative or “No Win – No Fee” basis. How do we do this? We keep our overheads low so we can pass on those savings to our clients. A happy client is the ultimate reward for us. This is always our aim and objective.
CTP claims – snapshot of claims process from start to finish
Understanding Road Accident Compensation
If you have been injured on the road due to a road accident and if the accident was not your fault, you are likely to be entitled to compensation or damages.
Road accident compensation covers many types of accidents on the road. Here are a few examples:-
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- Car or motor vehicle accidents
- Motorcycle or motorbike accidents
- Hit and Run accidents
- Accidents involving cyclists
- Accidents involving pedestrians
- Truck accidents
- Motor Scooter or Scooter or Moped accidents
If you have been injured in a road accident where the driver of your vehicle or the driver of another vehicle was at fault and you have been injured, you will be entitled to receive compensation with respect to your injuries.
What is compensation or damages?
Compensation or damages is money. The legal theory behind damages is to try to put the injured person in the same financial position they would have been in had they not been injured.
What are you entitled to claim or receive?
There are a number of components or ‘heads of damage’ that injured people are entitled to claim. The amounts which are able to be achieved depends on many factors including the seriousness of the injury or injuries, the age of the person, their education and work experience, their income history, their medical history or lack of medical history and their personal and family situation.
Here is a list of some of the components or heads of damage:-
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- Pain & Suffering (usually been $Nil for a minor or trivial injury to as much as $450,000.00 for a catastrophic injury)
- Out of Pocket Expenses (medical, pharmaceutical, hospital, travel)
- Past Loss of Income;
- Past of Superannuation Benefits;
- Future Loss of Income;
- Future Loss of Superannuation Benefits;
- Past Care and Assistance (domestic care and assistance – paid or unpaid – such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, ironing, vacuuming, car cleaning, dressing, travel, nursing assistance)
- Future Care and Assistance (domestic care and assistance – paid or unpaid)
- Future Medical Treatment.
Road accidents involving more serious injuries result in higher awards of compensation or damages. Less serious or more minor accidents with minor injuries will naturally result in smaller claims.
CTP claims – How to secure proper funding for medical treatment and rehabilitation needs
Who pays the compensation?
In road accident compensation claims, the comprehensive third-party insurer pays the compensation.
The current CTP insurers include Suncorp, Allianz and QBE.
For any road accidents caused by an unregistered or unidentified vehicle, the insurer is a government insurer called “The Nominal Defendant”. The time limits involving claims with the Nominal Defendant are shorter or much shorter than claims involving vehicles who are registered and identified.
Immediate Steps Following an Accident
If you are involved in a road accident and you are injured, we strongly recommend that you:-
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- Call 000 and ask for an ambulance from the Queensland Ambulance Service if an ambulance is required
- Notify the Queensland Police Service and you have an obligation to do so if you have been injured
- If possible, take images of the damage to your vehicle and the other vehicle or vehicles involved
- Exchange details with the driver of the vehicle at fault including their full name, home address, contact details and especially the registration number of the vehicle at fault
- If there were any witnesses to the accident, please obtain their details if possible
- Seek medical attention from your treating general practitioner if you did not need to be conveyed from the scene of the accident by ambulance
If your vehicle has been damaged and you are wanting or need to make a claim for property damage this is quite separate and distinct to a personal injury claim.
Many but not all vehicles have comprehensive motor vehicle insurance. If the vehicle at fault does have comprehensive insurance you can claim the damage to your vehicle from the driver at fault’s insurance company. A more difficult and annoying situation will occur if the driver at fault does not have comprehensive insurance which will leave you in the situation of trying to get them to pay for the damage to your vehicle. This may or may not be a problem if the other driver has the money or means to pay for the damage.
CTP or compulsory third-party insurance does not cover property damage to vehicles. CTP insurance only covers personal injury claims.
We are able to provide advice and give guidance to our clients regarding their property damage claims, however, most property damage claims are able to be resolved without engaging a law firm.
The importance of not delaying the lodgement of a CTP claim
Notifying the CTP Insurer of the driver of the vehicle at fault
It is important to notify the CTP insurer of the vehicle of the driver at fault as quickly as reasonably possible.
With the registration number of the vehicle at fault, we are able to conduct a simple and free search to identify who the insurer is.
If the insurer is, say Allianz, we can then prepare an important legal document called a “Notice of Accident Claim Form”. This document is publicly available and free to download from the Motor Accident Insurance Commission website.
Our clients ask us to prepare the Notice of Accident Claim Form for them to ensure that it is prepared correctly and carefully as the information contained in the document has to be declared and if any of the information is inaccurate or misleading, this can cause major problems for the case.
Once the Notice of Accident Claim Form has been lodged with the CTP insurer, the claim will have commenced.
Important Considerations for Claims Involving an Unidentified or Uninsured Vehicle
Time Limits for Lodging the Claim with the CTP insurer
From the date of the accident, you have 9 months from the date of the accident to lodge the Notice of Accident Claim Form with the CTP insurer or 1 month from your first consultation with a lawyer regarding the possibility of making the claim – whichever is the earlier of the two.
The time limit is shorter if the accident is a ‘hit and run’ or involves a vehicle which is unregistered or unidentified. In this situation, you only have three months from the date of the accident or one month from your first consultation with a lawyer regarding the possibility of making a claim. This type of claim has to be lodged with the Nominal Defendant. For ‘hit and run’ accidents or accidents involving unidentified vehicles, you also need to explain or prove ‘proper inquiry and search’ which addresses the various efforts you have made to try to identify the vehicle following the accident such as immediately notifying the police, door knocking, publishing public notices seeking information and similar efforts.
Once the claim has been lodged and has achieved compliance with the relevant legislation, the insurer is then required to investigate the matter and make a decision as to whether to admit or deny liability within 6 months.
If you have medical and rehabilitation needs, the insurer will often agree to fund any and all reasonable medical and rehabilitation needs.
The insurers generally work under a ‘medical model’ which is their language for requiring referrals and recommendations from doctors such as your GP for allied health care professionals such as physiotherapists, psychologists or referrals for medical specialists for more serious injuries if surgery or specialist medical attention is required.
There is another time limit which needs to be explained. All claims for personal injury in Queensland are subject to a three-year time limit for the commencement of legal proceedings. If court proceedings are not commenced within three years from the date of accident/injury, your right to pursue a common law claim for damages will be lost forever.
This three-year time limit is in addition to the time limits mentioned earlier regarding the lodgment of the Notice of Accident Claim Form.
If you engage or retain a lawyer or law firm to act for you regarding the claim, it becomes the responsibility or duty of the law firm to comply with all of the time limits and to ensure that the claim is progressed and for all documents to be prepared and lodged on time.
Common Mistakes and Pitfalls of a Road Accident Claim and how to avoid them?
Some of the common mistakes that people make if they have not retained a personal injury lawyer include:-
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- Adopting a ‘wait and see’ approach hoping that their injuries will settle down quickly and go away while the clock continues to tick away on the time limits and then lodging the claim out of time
- Not seeking medical attention or not seeking medical attention in a timely manner. There is no point stoically soldiering on with pain and problems and not seeking medical treatment as the insurance companies typically sees this as evidence that there was nothing wrong with you even if that is not the case
- Drafting and lodging the Notice of Accident Claim Form without any legal assistance which then allows the insurance company to deal with the injured person directly when they know the compensation system and how it works and you don’t. The insurance companies best interests are served by paying you as little as possible. It is not their role to give you advice or act in your best interests. Each year, there are some people who seek to avoid legal costs and deal directly with the insurers directly and achieve an inferior or poor outcome as compared to what they would have actually achieved ‘in their hand’ if they had engaged a personal injury lawyer with experience and expertise. In many cases, a healthy or significant portion of the legal costs are paid by the insurer.
Understanding Your Eligibility for a Claim
If you are injured due to a road accident due to the fault of the driver of another vehicle or the driver of the vehicle you are a passenger in, you will be eligible to make a claim and recover compensation or damages with respect to your injuries and the consequences of the injuries.
Engaging a Personal Injury Lawyer
There are many law firms in Queensland who act for people who have been injured in a road accident.
Engaging a law firm with experience, expertise and a strong reputation in road accident compensation claims is a good idea to achieve the best possible result.
At vbr Lawyers, we have decades of experience and expertise in personal injury law and more specifically with road accident compensation claims.
Our aim and ambition is to progress claims to resolution or final determination as quickly as possible, while keeping the legal costs down and also doing all that we can to achieve the maximum possible result for our clients.
The bulk of our work is from past and current happy clients or word of mouth referrals due to our reputation inside and outside the legal industry.
Clients appreciate the direct or one-on-one relationship they have with our senior lawyers including the owners of the firm who maintain a ‘hands on’ approach to all cases we take on which avoids our clients having inexperienced lawyers or their file being transferred from one lawyer to the next which is a common complaint we hear from clients who want to switch from their current firm.
Motor Vehicle Accident Claim: Assemble the Right Team for the Best Outcome
What is the CTP claims process – what is involved and how long does it take?
The Notice of Accident Claim Form needs to be lodged with the relevant CTP insurer of the vehicle at fault as soon as possible and within the time limits referred to earlier.
Once the Notice of Accident Claim Form has been lodged and once it achieves compliance, the insurer can be asked or even forced to provide reasonable and appropriate medical treatment and rehabilitation.
Following a road accident, it typically takes about 9 to 12 months for all injuries to stabilise or reach maximum medical improvement.
We organise medico-legal appointments with the best medical specialist or experts in their respective fields of medicine so we can obtain comprehensive reports which will allow us to fully understand the nature and extent of all accident-related injuries which then allows us to assess the quantum (or full value) of the claim.
A settlement conference known as a ‘compulsory conference’ is usually organised or takes place once the medico legal reports have been obtained. The insurers sometimes but not always obtains medico legal reports in reply from experts who they know and trust.
A settlement conference or mediation usually takes place 12 to 18 months post-accident. Sometimes this is earlier or even much earlier if the claim is smaller and there is no need to obtain medico-legal reports. Most claims require medico-legal reports to achieve the biggest and best possible outcome.
If the case cannot be settled or resolved at the compulsory conference or mediation, we then need to commence court proceedings and move the matter towards a mediation prior to trial and if necessary, a trial.
Something like 98% to 99% of all personal injury claims are able to be settled or resolved at some point along the pre-court procedures or prior to trial which are very good odds that a settlement will be achieved.
Prior to attending the settlement conference, we provide our clients with our written advice regarding the likely outcome and the likely ‘in hand’ figure after the deduction of any refunds and legal costs.
Once your case has settled or resolved, which is the most likely result, it takes about 8 to 12 weeks from the date of any settlement before the settlement money will be available to you. We do all that we can to speed up the process but this is the advice we generally provide to our clients.
What are the usual settlement outcomes?
It really does depend on many things or factors such as the severity of the accident, the severity of the injuries, the age of the injured person, how they have adapted or not adapted to their injuries, the education, work history, income history, medical history or lack of medical history to name a few.
For whiplash CTP claims, we often see outcomes between $50,000 to $500,000. More typically between $50,000 and $250,000.
If my cases settles for say $150,000, what will I receive ‘in hand’
This will depend on a few factors such as statutory refunds (‘refunds’) such as whether the client has been receiving income support from Centrelink and the size of any refund owing to Medicare Australia and whether a private health insurer has been funding any treatment but here is an example.
| Settlement Sum | $150,000.00 |
| Add legal costs paid by insurer | $30,000.00 |
| Deduct refunds | $5,000.00 |
| Deduct total legal costs: | $50,000.00 |
| ‘In Hand’ | $120,000.00 |
What are statutory refunds and why are they deducted?
During the course of your claim, you may receive assistance or funding from government agencies like Centrelink or Medicare Australia.
Each time you visit your GP, the Commonwealth Government funds some or all of each appointment. Some of our clients need to receive income support from Centrelink. Others do not. Every case is different.
If there is a refund to Medicare Australia, we simply claim the value of the refund from the insurer and this forms part of the overall value of the claim. The fact that there is a refund does not mean that the client is worse off as we have claimed the value of the refund from the insurer as part of the quantum or full value of the claim.
If there is a refund to Centrelink, this simply means that there has been a claim for economic loss. If you have received say $5,000.00 from Centrelink but your claim for economic loss or past & future loss of income is $100,000.00, you have received and spent the money from Centrelink while recovering $100,000.00 for your economic loss. You are $95,000.00 in front using this example plus you have had the benefit of the $5,000.00 from Centrelink during the claim. The same would apply if the Centrelink refund is say $20,000.00. The only way to avoid a refund to Centrelink is not to make a claim for economic loss, however, it is often the situation that the claim for economic loss will make the claim viable or more viable to run or pursue.
What is “No Win – No Fee” and does vbr Lawyers offer this?
‘No Win – No Fee’ client agreements or retainers simply means that we will not be paid unless we are successful for you in the case.
Our ‘No Win – No Fee’ policy relates to all cases we are willing to take on for our clients.
In the highly unlikely event that your case proceeds to trial and even more unlikely that you lose the case, while we would not be paid anything, the court is likely to order that you pay the other side’s legal costs because they won and you lost. We carefully consider the cases we take on. We have a very high success rate with respect to our trial work. If we think your case is risky or high risk, we may not agree to take it on and we will explain this to you carefully.
Our ‘No Win – No Fee’ policy is not an indemnity to pay the other side’s legal costs if you lose, however, if we think your case is high risk and unlikely to succeed, we will give you this advice early and usually before we agree to take on the case.
How does vbr Lawyers fee model or structure compare with other personal injury law firms?
Very well or favourably.
We have not increased our hourly rates in 8 years.
Our hourly rates are lower or much lower than our competitors.
We have a 30% fee cap on professional costs which some but not many of our competitors offer.
We also do not charge a 25% uplift on professional costs due to acting for our clients on a speculative or ‘No Win – No Fee’ basis.
Maximising an award of damages in a CTP Claim
Google Reviews
At the present time, we have 166 five-star Google reviews. For a smaller to medium-sized personal injury law firm, we are not aware of any other firm in Queensland with this level of client satisfaction across our offices.
Real Client Stories and Testimonials
Read our 5 star Google reviews
Conclusion
We hope and trust that the information contained in this Guide has been of assistance.
If you have been injured due to a road accident, we wish you every possible success with your claim.
If you would like to contact vbr Lawyers for a truly obligation free and cost free initial consultation without any pressure to do or not do anything, we would be delighted to assist you if possible.
We act for injured people all over Queensland.
We have offices located in the Brisbane CBD, Corinda (Brisbane West) and on the Gold Coast (Burleigh Heads and Robina).
While we have three physical offices, we regularly act for our clients from as far north as Cooktown out to Mt Isa in the west and as south as Coolangatta.
FURTHER READING : CTP claims – The latest statistics from the Motor Accident Insurance Commission
