The Personal Injury Commission continues to experience an increase in filings across both the Motor Accidents and Workers Compensation Divisions.

The second half of 2025 saw a considerable spike in numbers and this trend is expected to continue in the near term.

Despite this, the Commission continues to deliver timely decisions and achieve high finalisations, thanks to a strong focus on operational efficiency and excellence in decision-making.

While finalisations remain strong, the volume of filings means our matters on hand have increased.

Motor Accidents

Motor accident medical dispute lodgements have increased steadily over the last 3 years, with a larger increase seen in the second half of 2025.

There were over 5,100 motor accident medical disputes in the 2025 calendar year, an increase of 17% when compared to 2024.

While there has been a slight decrease in the volume of finalisations over the last 3 years, the decrease in the clearance rate is driven by the significant increase in lodgements.

Lodgements typically reduce over the December-January period, but last month saw an 11% increase when compared to January 2025.

This increase in filings has seen work on hand increase. At the end of January 2026, the Commission had over 2,600 motor accident medical disputes in progress, an increase of 18% compared with January 2025.

Lifecycles have typically trended down in recent years, but there has been a slight upturn in early 2026. While this increase is not significant, a further increase is expected. The Commission continues to monitor this closely.

Workers compensation

Form 2 (including Form 2D) applications to resolve a dispute rose to over 8,500 in the 2025 calendar year, a significant increase of more than 21% from the previous year.

Finalisations have remained strong, with 7,800 finalisations in 2025 compared to over 7,100 in the previous year; however, the clearance rate decreased to 91% for the calendar year.

As a result, matters on hand have increased. At the end of January 2026, there were 2,800 Form 2/2D applications in progress, a 50% increase from the same time last year.

While January lodgements appear to be returning to more normal filing numbers following the increase in 2025, this is still a 22% increase on the January 2025 filings.

While lifecycles for Form 2/2D do experience peaks and troughs, they have generally trended down. However, given the significant increase in filings that we continue to experience, we should expect this to increase in the short to medium term.

How the Commission is responding

The Commission continues to proactively implement a range of initiatives to meet the increased demand in filings, including:

• enhancing registry and case management processes as part of a continuous improvement approach
• increasing dual and triple appointments, whereby members and medical assessors are appointed across divisions, providing greater flexibility for decision-maker resource allocation
• increasing medical assessor availability
• targeted recruitment of new medical assessors
• reducing the rescheduling and cancellations of medical assessment appointments through pre-assessment phone calls to claimants
• improvements to the provision of medical certificates
• the implementation of phase 2 of the Medical Review Panel Pilot program.

Practitioners also have an important part to play by ensuring their clients understand the importance of attending their medical assessment at the scheduled time.

The timely submission of evidence ahead of any scheduled event is also critical, as large volumes of late documents can impact the timely resolution of a dispute.

The Commission continues to closely monitor and analyse the relevant data and will continue to keep tribunal users updated.