August 7, 2026
- solicitors@campbellslegal.com.au
- (07) 3849 3066
Queensland has three separate personal injury schemes, and which one applies depends on how you were hurt — on the road, at work, or somewhere else. Each has its own insurer, its own forms, and its own deadlines. The deadlines are the part that catches people out.
Campbells Legal has practised in this area since the firm's principal was admitted in 1981. This page explains how the law operates, what your rights are under it, and the basis on which we're prepared to act. It isn't advice about your situation — for that, you'd need to talk to us.
to give notice of a CTP or public liability claim
to lodge a WorkCover statutory claim
to start court proceedings in most cases
The deadline most people don’t know about
Seeing a lawyer starts a one-month clock
Most people know there’s a nine-month window to give notice of a motor vehicle or public liability claim in Queensland. Fewer know that the moment you first consult a lawyer about the claim, that window can shrink to one month from the consultation — whichever date comes first. The rule exists to stop claims sitting on a solicitor’s desk. In practice it means that if you’re going to get advice, get it early, and expect the notice to go in promptly once you do.
Motor Accident Insurance Act 1994 (Qld) s 37 · Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 (Qld) s 9 →If you were injured in a motor vehicle accident in Queensland — as a driver, passenger, cyclist, motorcyclist or pedestrian — your claim is against the at-fault vehicle's CTP insurer under the Motor Accident Insurance Act 1994 (Qld). CTP is compulsory on every registered Queensland vehicle, so there is almost always an insurer to claim against.
The notice step. A Notice of Accident Claim Form must be given to the CTP insurer within nine months of the accident, or within one month of first consulting a lawyer about the claim — whichever comes first. The insurer then has a fixed period to decide whether it accepts liability.
If the driver can't be identified or the vehicle was unregistered, the claim is against the Nominal Defendant, and the time limit is shorter — notice within three months, and the claim is barred entirely if no notice reaches the Nominal Defendant within nine months.
What the law allows you to claim. Damages are assessed under the Civil Liability Act 2003 (Qld): general damages for pain and suffering on the Injury Scale Value, past and future loss of income, treatment costs, and care. The ISV framework was restated in the Civil Liability Regulation 2025, which replaced the 2014 Regulation from 1 September 2025, and the dollar amounts are indexed every July.
Workplace injuries run on two tracks under the Workers' Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 (Qld), and it's important to understand both.
The statutory claim is a no-fault claim through WorkCover Queensland or a self-insurer. You don't need to prove anyone did anything wrong. It covers medical expenses, weekly payments while you can't work, and a lump sum if you're left with a permanent impairment. It must be lodged within six months — and if you lodge more than 20 days after the injury, back pay is usually limited to the 20 days before you lodged.
The common law claim is a separate claim for damages where the injury was caused by your employer's negligence. It generally can't start until the statutory claim has run its course and WorkCover has issued a Notice of Assessment. The time limit is three years from the date of injury.
The decision point is the Notice of Assessment. Once it arrives, you have 20 business days to respond, and accepting a lump sum offer can affect your right to pursue common law damages. Don't sign anything from WorkCover without advice at that point.
Queensland’s three personal injury schemes
Which one applies depends on where you were hurt
| Motor vehicle | Workplace | Everywhere else | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legislation | Motor Accident Insurance Act 1994 | Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 | Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 |
| Who you claim against | The at-fault vehicle’s CTP insurer | WorkCover Queensland or a self-insured employer | The occupier or duty-holder, via their liability insurer |
| Do you need to prove fault? | Yes — negligence of the other driver | No for the statutory claim; yes for common law damages | Yes — breach of a duty of care |
| First deadline | Notice within 9 months, or 1 month after consulting a lawyer | Statutory claim within 6 months of injury | Part 1 Notice within 9 months, or 1 month after consulting a lawyer |
| Outer limit | 3 years to start court proceedings | 3 years for a common law claim | 3 years to start court proceedings |
| Damages assessed under | Civil Liability Act 2003 — ISV scale | WCRA — its own ISV scale | Civil Liability Act 2003 — ISV scale |
Injured at work in a motor vehicle? Both the WorkCover and CTP schemes can be engaged at once, and the interaction between them matters. Ask us which applies.
Injuries that happen somewhere other than the road or your workplace — a shopping centre, a rental property, a footpath, a sporting venue, someone else's home — are public liability claims under the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 (Qld).
The claim is against the occupier or whoever owed you a duty of care, and in practice against their public liability insurer. You need to show negligence: that they owed you a duty, breached it, and the breach caused your injury. The Civil Liability Act sets out how courts decide those questions, including the "obvious risk" and "dangerous recreational activity" defences that insurers rely on.
The notice step. A Part 1 Notice of Claim must be given to the respondent within nine months of the injury, or within one month of first consulting a lawyer — the same rule as CTP. The respondent then has to respond on liability, and the Act requires both sides to exchange information and attend a compulsory conference before anyone can go to court.
Medical negligence claims also fall under PIPA, with an additional requirement: before the Part 1 Notice can be given, the claimant must have an initial notice served on the health provider, and the claim generally needs to be supported by a written report from a medical expert that there's a reasonable basis for it.
These are complex claims. The question isn't whether the outcome was bad — it's whether the treatment fell below the standard a competent practitioner would have provided, and whether that caused the harm. The three-year limitation period can run from when the injury was discovered rather than when it occurred, but that extension isn't automatic.
If an injury or illness has left you unable to work, you may have a total and permanent disability benefit inside your superannuation — often without knowing it. Most funds include default TPD and income protection cover. These are contractual claims against the insurer, not negligence claims, and they can be made alongside a CTP or WorkCover claim, or on their own when nobody was at fault.
The pre-court process
How a Queensland personal injury claim runs
Notice of claim9 months · 1 month
The formal notice goes to the insurer or respondent on the prescribed form. For WorkCover, this is the statutory claim. The deadline depends on the scheme — and on whether you’ve consulted a lawyer.
Liability responseFixed period
The insurer must respond within a set time, accepting or denying liability, in whole or in part. A denial isn’t the end — it’s the start of the argument.
Medical evidenceMonths
Your injuries need to stabilise before they can be properly assessed. Specialist reports establish the Injury Scale Value, the impact on your capacity to work, and your future needs. This is usually the longest phase.
Exchange of informationOngoing
Both sides are required to disclose the documents relevant to the claim. Insurers also arrange their own medical examinations, which you’re obliged to attend.
Compulsory conferenceBefore court
The legislation requires the parties to meet and attempt settlement before anyone can start proceedings. Most Queensland claims resolve here or shortly after. Each side must then make a written final offer.
Court proceedingsWithin 3 years
If the conference doesn’t resolve the claim, proceedings can be started — within the three-year limitation period, or within 60 days of the conference if that is later. Only a small proportion of claims get this far.
The law is designed to settle claims before court. The pre-court steps are mandatory, not optional — and they’re also where most of the work is done.
This section explains the conditions under which Campbells Legal is prepared to provide personal injury services.
The first conversation is free. We'll tell you which scheme applies, what the deadlines are, and whether we think there's a claim worth pursuing. If there isn't, we'll say so.
Costs agreement first. Before any work starts you'll have a written costs agreement setting out how fees are calculated, what disbursements are likely, and what happens if the claim doesn't succeed.
The 50/50 rule. Queensland law limits what a law practice can charge in a speculative personal injury matter — under section 347 of the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld), legal costs can't exceed half of what's left after refunds and disbursements are deducted from the settlement. We'll explain how that applies to your matter before you sign anything.
No claim farming. It's an offence in Queensland to pay for or receive referrals of personal injury claims. If anyone has approached you unsolicited about a claim, that's a warning sign, and we'd want to know about it.
If you’ve been injured
Six things that protect your position
See a doctor, and keep seeing one
Medical records made at the time are the backbone of any claim. Gaps in treatment are read by insurers as gaps in injury.
Report it in writing
To police for a road accident, to your employer for a workplace injury, to the occupier for anything else. A contemporaneous written report is hard to argue with later.
Photograph everything
The scene, the hazard, the vehicle damage, your injuries. Conditions change and hazards get fixed — usually within days of someone being hurt on them.
Get witness details
Names and phone numbers of anyone who saw what happened. People are easy to find in the first week and nearly impossible six months later.
Keep every receipt
Medical bills, pharmacy, travel to appointments, equipment, help around the house. If you paid for it because of the injury, it’s potentially claimable — but only if you can prove it.
Don’t sign anything from an insurer
Not a statement, not a release, not an early offer — until you’ve had advice. Early offers are made before anyone knows how the injury will settle, which is exactly why they’re made early.
And note the date. Every deadline on this page runs from the day you were injured. Write it down somewhere you’ll find it. Then call us — the first conversation is free, and it starts the clock on nothing except our obligation to act promptly.
Or call us now on (07) 3849 3066, Monday to Friday, 9am–5pm.
Insurers often make an early offer — sometimes within weeks of the accident, and almost always before anyone knows how the injury will settle. Once you accept and sign the release, the claim is closed.
You're entitled to advice before that happens. Send us the offer and the correspondence and we'll tell you what it covers, what it leaves out, and whether the timing is right. There's no charge for that conversation.
Lodging the notice starts a sequence the legislation controls — the insurer's liability response, disclosure both ways, medical evidence, and the compulsory conference.
None of it runs on fixed calendar dates; each step depends on the one before. We run that sequence, deal with the insurer so you don't have to, and tell you what's coming before it arrives.
We act on most personal injury claims on a speculative basis — our fees are only payable if the claim succeeds. If it does, Queensland’s 50/50 rule applies: under section 347 of the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld), our fees cannot exceed half of what remains after statutory refunds and disbursements have been deducted from the settlement.
Disbursements — specialist medical reports, court fees, searches — are set out in the costs agreement, along with who funds them and when. You’ll have that agreement in writing before any work starts.
Most claims settle at or shortly after the compulsory conference. The agreement is put in writing, and the insurer pays the agreed sum into our trust account within the period the agreement sets. It stays there, not in the firm’s own account, until every step below is complete.
Before anything is released to you, the law requires certain refunds to be paid first — Medicare for benefits related to the injury, Centrelink if you received payments during the claim, and WorkCover if you received statutory compensation. You then receive a settlement statement showing every deduction, you approve it, and the balance is paid to your nominated account.
When a claim settles
Where the settlement money goes, and in what order
The figure in a settlement agreement is not the figure that reaches you. Queensland and Commonwealth law require certain refunds to be paid first, and the costs agreement governs what comes out after that. The order is fixed.
Settlement paid into trust
The insurer pays the agreed sum into our trust account within the period set by the settlement agreement. It is held there, not in the firm’s own account, until every step below is complete.
Medicare refundRequired by law
Medicare benefits paid for treatment of the injury must be repaid to the Commonwealth before any money is released to you. Medicare issues a notice of past benefits; the amount is deducted from the settlement.
CentrelinkRequired by law
If you received Centrelink payments while unable to work because of the injury, the compensation-affected portion is repaid from the settlement. A lump sum can also impose a preclusion period on future payments — we tell you about this before you settle, not after.
WorkCover and other refundsWhere applicable
Statutory compensation already paid by WorkCover is refunded from a common law settlement. The same applies to any private health fund or income protection insurer that has paid benefits and holds a right of recovery.
Disbursements
The out-of-pocket costs of running the claim — specialist medical reports, court filing fees, searches, barrister’s fees where one is briefed. These are itemised in the settlement statement and were set out in the costs agreement at the start.
Legal fees50/50 cap
In a speculative matter, section 347 of the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld) caps what a law practice can charge at half of what remains after the refunds and disbursements above. Our fees are calculated under the costs agreement and cannot exceed that cap.
The balance is paid to you
You receive a settlement statement showing every deduction above, line by line. Once you’ve approved it, the balance is transferred from trust to your nominated account.
Ask for the settlement statement before you agree to anything. You’re entitled to know what the net figure will be before you sign a settlement agreement, not after — and a solicitor who can’t show you that figure in advance is a solicitor to be cautious of.
Three years to start court proceedings in most cases — but the notice deadlines come much sooner. Nine months for CTP and public liability claims, six months for a WorkCover statutory claim, and once you've consulted a lawyer, one month. Miss the notice deadline and the claim can be lost before the three years is up.
You can lodge the Notice of Accident Claim Form yourself. Whether you should depends on how serious the injury is. The insurer's job is to settle for as little as possible, and once you've consulted a lawyer the one-month notice clock starts — so if you're going to get advice, get it early rather than after the insurer has made an offer.
The statutory WorkCover claim is no-fault — you don't need to prove negligence, and it covers medical costs and weekly payments. The common law claim is for damages caused by your employer's negligence, and it generally can't start until the statutory claim has finished and WorkCover has issued a Notice of Assessment.
A limit under the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld) on what a law practice can charge in a speculative personal injury matter. Legal costs can't exceed half of what remains after refunds and disbursements are taken out of the settlement. It's there to make sure the injured person keeps a fair share.
Yes. The statutory WorkCover claim is no-fault, so your own conduct doesn't affect it. For a common law claim, contributory negligence reduces the damages by a percentage rather than defeating the claim entirely.
Call us anyway. The three-year period can be extended where a material fact of a decisive character wasn't known, and some claims — including those arising from childhood abuse — have no limitation period at all. It depends on the circumstances, and the only way to know is to ask.
An injury rarely affects just one part of your life. These are the areas our injury clients most often need next.
Buying or selling a home in Queensland - full service conveyancing.
Commercial conveyancing, leases and developments
Buying and selling businesses, companies and trusts
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