Overview
Introduction
Compulsory third party (CTP) insurance in Queensland provides financial protection for motorists in the event of a motor vehicle crash. It also delivers fair and timely access to rehabilitation for people who are injured. It is conveniently bundled with vehicle registration to ensure that all registered Queensland motorists receive this important protection.
The Motor Accident Insurance Commission (MAIC) regulates CTP insurance in Queensland to ensure it meets these objectives. This year, MAIC continues to review and improve our adherence to our core objectives. Read on to learn more.
Highlights from 2023-2024
During the 2023–24 financial year, we:
- effectively managed the withdrawal of RACQ Insurance Limited as a licensed CTP insurer in conjunction with Department of Transport & Main Roads and the remaining three licensed insurers
- continued to investigate and prosecute claim farming cases, after recording Australia’s first prosecution for claim farming in 2023
- developed and published a set of guiding principles aimed at enhancing the claimant experience, which were co-designed with legal and insurer stakeholders
- worked with leading scheme stakeholders and innovators at the Queensland University of Technology to identify, co-design and develop initiatives that prioritise claimant-centric service design and leverage digital tools to streamline the claims process
- strengthened our investments in research and activities to seek to further reduce the incidence and effects of road trauma
- completed a claimant survey and reinforced our action plans as part of the results.
On the horizon
In the year ahead, we will:
- reflect on achievements over 30 years of the MAIC and inspire future collaborations with valued partners and stakeholders
- explore ways we can further improve MAIC’s regulatory compliance and oversight frameworks, tools and practices
- engage with insurers to identify smarter ways of submitting claim-related data and reports to MAIC
- explore opportunities for digital claims to improve claimant experience
- strengthen privacy systems and policies involved in administratively releasing information to authorised individuals
- continue our focus on deterring and eliminating claim farming practices
- explore recommendations and implement outcomes arising from Queensland University of Technology research to improve the claimant experience.
Stay in the loop
Explore our graphs below to learn more about our scheme’s performance.
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Affordability
Delivering the second-lowest CTP insurance premiums in Australia
Affordability level
The affordability level (20.3%) compares the annual CTP premium with the Queensland weekly average wage.
2023-24 data shows that CTP insurance premiums remained consistent to offer stable and affordable insurance to Queensland motorists.
CTP premium breakdown
The overall CTP insurance premium comprises levies and a fee that fund services for people who are injured in motor vehicle crashes. It also includes an insurer’s premium that is used to meet the expected costs of claims, as well as insurer expenses and profits for administering claims.
Insurer market share
The market for CTP insurance in Queensland has three operators: Suncorp, Allianz and QBE. In July 2023, RACQ signalled their intention to leave Queensland’s CTP scheme (effective October 1, 2023). RACQ’s CTP policies were reassigned to the remaining three insurers, with each picking up an equal one-third share.
New registrations through motor dealers
Motorists select their CTP insurer when they purchase a new or used vehicle through the motor dealer.
Efficiency
Balancing claimant benefits with scheme delivery costs
The efficiency of a CTP insurance scheme can be judged by how well insurer delivery costs are controlled while maximising the amount paid to benefit the person who was injured. We consider a minimum benchmark for our privately-underwritten scheme is for 60% of CTP insurance premiums to be delivered as claimant benefits.
Claimants continue to receive almost three-quarters of the premiums collected from vehicle registrations. This years result is in line with last years, maintaining the previous high of 73%.
We continue to see the increase in claimant benefit and decrease in delivery cost post the 2016 scheme review, mainly due to measures implemented to address persistently high insurer profits.
Ensuring timely resolution of claims
Our legislation requires insurers to deal with claims as quickly as possible, with insurers determining liability within 6 months of receiving a compliant claim. We continue to see a high level of timely resolution consistently achieving over 99%. This data indicates that insurers and lawyers continue to work constructively together to resolve claims quickly.
of claims met this requirement in the last 12 months.*
Legally-represented claimants – Average claim duration (months)
We continue to monitor insurers’ legislative compliance and claims management practices, including claim durations and stages of settlement. Where variations exist between insurers, we are analysing the data and consulting with insurers to understand the reasons behind it. The duration of a claim can be influenced by injury severity, circumstances around liability, evidence gathering, and claims management approach.
MAIC has continued to work closely with all insurers to help identify areas of claims management improvements. Allianz, QBE and RACQ have all seen a decrease in their finalisation timeframes, and QBE remains quickest across industry.
Direct claimants – Average claim duration (months)
People who lodge claims directly with an insurer tend to experience shorter claim durations than people who lodge claims through legal representatives. This may be because people often seek legal assistance when their claim is more complex.
Claims settled before, during or after compulsory conference (CC) by insurer
Some claims involve a compulsory conference, or meeting, being held between parties to resolve the claim. When negotiations at a compulsory conference are unsuccessful, claims may progress to court proceedings. Many claims are settled without the parties needing to hold a compulsory conference, some are settled at or within 14 days of compulsory conference, and very few claims proceed to court.
The data shows that the proportion of claims settling prior to compulsory conference has increased, reversing the trend seen over the previous four years.
Fairness
Facilitating fair and timely access to compensation and rehabilitation
Total payments by heads of damage for finalised claims
In Queensland, CTP insurance enables people who are injured in vehicle crashes through no fault of their own to claim fair and timely compensation and access rehabilitation. The compensation paid to the person who was injured depends on the extent of their injuries resulting from the vehicle crash and how these injuries affect their work and social functioning.
The number of claims finalised over the last 12 months grew by approximately 10%, as such, so did total payments.
Number of new claims per quarter
The number of new claims notified by Queensland law firms has decreased over the last 12 months, while the number of direct claimants increased. This is most likely in response to direct claimant initiatives by insurers, to improve the experience of claimants lodging their claim directly.
Proportion of claims added per quarter
In 2023–24, the proportion of claims added per quarter has shifted slightly, with more than one-quarter of claimants choosing to lodge their claim with the insurer directly. This applied to the claim lodgement stage, however some people may later choose to be legally represented during the course of their claim.
Number of claims added per quarter by severity
In the 2023-24 period, there was a 5% increase in claims compared to the previous year. This can be attributed partly to the growing number of registered vehicles. Additionally, we observed a delay in claim submission after the RACQ exit, leading to a rise in claims added during the third and fourth quarters of 2023 for accidents that occurred earlier.
Over time, the number of claimants suffering moderate and more severe injuries has remained flat.
Nominal Defendant claims received by financial year
The Nominal Defendant ensures that people involved in crashes with unidentified or uninsured vehicles still receive fair and timely access to compensation and rehabilitation.
In 2023–24, the Nominal Defendant added 179 managed claims involving unidentified vehicles and 89 claims involving uninsured vehicles – which is 20% higher than the previous 12 months.
Claimants by role in accidents involving an unidentified vehicle
The Nominal Defendant manages claims for various types of people, ranging from cyclists to drivers to pedestrians. As per previous years, most claims were lodged by a driver.
For claims involving an unidentified vehicle, 45.5% of claimants were drivers and 16.1% were motorcyclists.
Responsiveness
Responding to many varied types of road users, crashes and traffic patterns
Queensland’s CTP insurance scheme supports a wide range of people with different ages, genders, roles in crashes and types of crashes.
Age groups of claimants by gender
In 2023–24 most claims were lodged by people aged between 26 and 35. The second-largest cohort of people lodging claims was people aged from 36 to 45.
Queensland crash claims by region
As per previous years, our data continues to show that more CTP insurance claims were lodged by people in metropolitan areas than regional areas, but regional crashes generally led to more severe injuries than metropolitan areas.
Number of crashes per time and day of week
The data continues to demonstrate that the majority of crashes occur between 3pm and 6pm on weekdays. The likely cause is higher traffic volumes at peak periods for road travel.
Percentage of serious crashes per time and day of week
Although fewer accidents occurred during the evening, the crashes that did occur were more likely to be more serious, particularly on weekends with the peak period being Sunday between 3am and 6am.
Claim severity, role and crash details
Our data shows that majority of claims are of a minor severity, with 61.5% of claims by drivers, and 50.5% of the accidents occurring when vehicles are travelling in the same direction.
We continue to support initiatives led by the Department of Transport and Main Roads and Queensland Police Service to reduce distracted driving that can cause these types of collisions.
Injuries by body regions
From the period of 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2024, our data showed the largest proportion of claimants experienced spinal injuries (78.1%). The majority of these injuries were reported as whiplash, while 1.3% experienced severe spinal injuries.
While head injuries make up a smaller percentage (12.9%) of reported accidents, the severity level relative to the injury is high (7%). The thorax continues to remain the most likely part of the body to be seriously injured at 12.6%.
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Number of registered vehicles by vehicle class
Vehicle classes continued to see a steady growth in the overall vehicle fleet from July 2023 to June 2024, with an increase of almost 150,000.
Average road traffic flow, in comparison to corresponding months in 2019
Data sourced from the Department of Transport and Main Roads showed that traffic volumes over the last 12 months have consistently been below 2019-levels across South-East Queensland.
For several years, MAIC has been using traffic data to assist with our modelling and predictions. As the traffic volumes and claim frequency have begun to stabalise, we have removed adjustments based on this data. However, we will continue to monitor it closely.
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