All claims for compensation are assessed individually. The amount of compensation paid depends on the type and extent of your injury and your particular circumstances. The compensation you are entitled to may be reduced if you were partially at fault.
Your claim could include the cost of medical treatment, rehabilitation, loss of income (past and estimated future), cost of care and support services and general damages (pain and suffering) if your injury is severe enough. You may be able to claim other expenses depending on your individual circumstances. Discuss any queries with the insurer or your lawyer (if you are legally represented).
Assessing general damages
‘General damages’ refers to compensation for loss of quality of life such as pain and suffering. Not all injuries are severe enough to obtain general damages.
Under the Civil Liability Act 2003, general damages are calculated by working out an Injury Scale Value (ISV). The ISVs are set out in the Civil Liability Regulation 2014.
Under the ISV system, injuries are assigned a point value between zero and 100, where zero relates to an injury not severe enough to justify any award of general damages and 100 is the most severe injury possible.
The ISV system aims to promote:
- consistency between assessments of general damages for similar injuries
- similar assessments of general damages for different types of injuries that have a similar level of impact on an injured person.
Calculating your ISV
To calculate your ISV, you can refer to the following sections of the Civil Liability Regulation 2014:
- Schedule 3 – for instructions on working out the ISV for an injury
- Schedule 4 – for calculating the ISV points to be allocated for an injury
- Schedule 7 – for calculating the dollar value of ISV points.
For further information about how to work out an ISV or general damages for your injury, contact the CTP insurer or your lawyer (if you are legally represented).
Fatal injuries
Examples of loss that may be claimed by a relative or dependant of the person who sustained a fatal injury are:
- reasonable funeral costs
- financial loss arising from the death of an income provider (this could be claims from the surviving spouse (including a de facto partner), dependent children and other dependent persons).
To make a fatal injury claim, please use the Notice of Accident Claim Form (Fatal Injury) (PDF, 457 KB). At this stage, you can’t lodge a claim for fatal injury using our Online claim form (eNOAC), so please use the PDF version.