Commuting and journey claim accident: NSW workers compensation guide

Commuting and journey claim accident can occur through road crash on the ordinary route and incident connected with fatigue, a work call, required equipment or a specific employment circumstance. The incident history should identify the task, equipment, location and sequence of events rather than relying on the job title alone.

People commonly exposed include workers travelling between home and their usual workplace and shift workers travelling at unusual hours. Employment records should identify each person's task, employer and position in the work area when the incident occurred.

Medical records after a commuting and journey claim accident may identify personal injury from collision, fall or other journey incident and spinal, limb, head, fracture or psychological consequences. Each diagnosis should be linked to the event or exposure and to the worker's actual functional change.

For a commuting and journey claim accident, the first evidence to preserve includes roster, actual start or finish time, overtime or call-out records, and work communications relied on to explain the employment connection and planned and actual route, timing, every material stop or deviation, and the purpose and duration of each change. It is most useful when dates, people, equipment, duties and later medical histories tell a consistent account.

• Lawfully available GPS, toll, dashcam, phone, public-transport, police and witness records.
• Early medical records identifying the incident and diagnosed personal injury, including evidence about fatigue or another work circumstance if that is the alleged connection.

After a commuting and journey claim accident, an insurer may dispute the facts establish only that the worker was commuting, not a real and substantial connection between employment and the accident or incident and a personal interruption or deviation changed the journey and materially increased the risk of injury. The written decision should be answered with evidence directed to those stated reasons.

Section 10 concerns whether a personal injury on a listed journey is deemed work-related; treatment records must still diagnose the injury and connect it with the incident. An insurer may separately dispute whether proposed treatment is reasonably necessary because of the accepted injury. If treatment is disputed after a commuting and journey claim accident, the request should explain the accepted diagnosis, expected functional benefit and reasonable alternatives.

Work capacity after a commuting and journey claim accident may turn on acceptance of the journey injury does not by itself establish incapacity, weekly-payment duration or a particular earning-capacity result and certificates of capacity and treating reports should explain functional restrictions arising from the diagnosed injury. Proposed duties must be compared with the real task demands and the worker's ability to sustain them for the proposed hours.

WPI is assessed from stable, accepted medical impairment under the applicable NSW method; travel, collision, surgery or imaging does not create an automatic percentage. Each diagnosed body system must be assessed using its own clinical findings, and any pre-existing impairment issue must be addressed separately. Any WPI assessment after a commuting and journey claim accident occurs after stabilisation under the NSW method for the accepted body system; the accident or surgery alone does not determine a percentage.

A motor crash on a commute may also require a separate NSW CTP claim even if the workers compensation journey test is disputed. Workers compensation and CTP are separate schemes; where both claims are made, section 3.35 of the Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017 coordinates statutory benefits and requires both insurers to be informed. These issues are separate from workers compensation and depend on the particular facts.

For a commuting and journey claim accident, assistance may involve identify the exact section 10 journey category before assessing the connection with employment and reconstruct the route, work circumstances, stops, timing and alleged cause of the accident from original records. The purpose is to identify the disputed decision and the evidence needed for the next step, not to promise an outcome.