At Fault in a NSW Crash — What You're Still Entitled To

Here's the single biggest myth in NSW motor accident claims: if you were at fault, you get nothing.

It's wrong. It has been wrong since the Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017 (MAIA 2017) came into effect. And it's wrong in a way that costs at-fault drivers across NSW tens of thousands of dollars a year in benefits they never claim — because no one told them they could.

This article is the plain-English correction. If you caused a crash in NSW and you were injured, you're entitled to up to 52 weeks of statutory benefits, regardless of fault. Here's what that actually covers, why most lawyers won't run your file, and how to claim it.

Why the myth survives

Three reasons:

1. The scheme is complicated. CTP, statutory benefits, damages, threshold, non-threshold, MAIA 2017, SIRA — most people outside the industry have never heard those words. If no one explains the split between statutory benefits and damages, it's reasonable to assume "at-fault means nothing".
2. Compensation lawyers usually decline at-fault files. The no-win-no-fee model that most firms run depends on a damages lump sum at the end, which they take a percentage of. At-fault claims have no damages, so they have nothing to earn a fee against. The firm says "we can't help you" — which is technically true about damages but is heard as "you're not entitled to anything".
3. Insurers don't volunteer information. CTP insurers are required to pay what's owed. They aren't required to teach you the scheme. If you don't lodge a claim, they don't pay. If you lodge late, they argue about backdated payments.

Put those together and you have hundreds of at-fault drivers a year across NSW walking away from benefits that are sitting there waiting for them.

What statutory benefits cover

Under the MAIA 2017, statutory benefits are the defined, not-fault-sensitive part of the CTP scheme. For an injured at-fault driver, they cover three things:

1. Weekly income support

Weekly payments direct to your bank account, designed to replace most of the income you've lost while you're unable to work.

• Weeks 1–13: up to 95% of your pre-accident weekly earnings (capped at a weekly maximum set by SIRA and indexed each year).
• From week 14 onwards: the rate steps down under MAIA 2017 — 80% where you've lost earnings totally, 85% where the loss is partial, subject to the same SIRA weekly cap.
• Backdated to the date of the accident if you lodge within 28 days — more on that below.

If you earn $1,500 a week and you're unable to work for 26 weeks, statutory benefits can pay close to $35,000 over that period — a figure that makes the difference between keeping a mortgage on track and not.

2. Treatment and care

The scheme covers reasonable and necessary medical treatment related to the accident — paid direct to the provider, not reimbursed from your pocket:

• GP visits.
• Physiotherapy, chiropractic, osteopathy.
• Imaging (X-ray, CT, MRI).
• Specialist appointments.
• Surgery where required.
• Psychology and psychiatry.
• Medications prescribed for the injury.

Treatment is approved in blocks by the insurer. A physio might be approved in a 6-session block; a psychologist in a 10-session mental-health care plan. Approvals need clinical justification — a GP referral, a specialist's opinion, a treatment plan.

3. Domestic assistance and attendant care

Where your injury stops you doing basic tasks at home — cooking, cleaning, dressing, driving the kids to school — the scheme can fund paid help. This is usually a smaller figure than income support, but it matters for claimants with significant functional loss.

What fault removes

To be clear about what at-fault does block:

• Damages lump-sum. The common-law side of the claim — pain and suffering, future economic loss, future care — is blocked if you're wholly or mostly (over 61%) at fault. That's the traditional "compensation payout" people associate with a car accident claim.
• Weekly payments beyond 52 weeks. Most at-fault claimants reach the 52-week cap and payments stop there, with limited pathways to extend for a narrow category of ongoing-injury cases.

What fault doesn't block:

• The statutory benefits listed above, for the first 52 weeks.
• Your right to have your claim properly assessed.
• Your right to the same treatment a not-at-fault claimant would get, during the 52-week window.

The exclusions — where statutory benefits are actually blocked

There are a small number of fault-related exclusions under MAIA 2017 where statutory benefits can be refused or stopped, typically involving:

• Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs above the legal limit.
• Driving while unlicensed (in some specific scenarios).
• Using the vehicle to commit a serious offence.
• Deliberate self-injury.

Outside those narrow exclusions, being at fault for a crash — even a bad one — doesn't block the 52 weeks. This is the part that consistently surprises people.

The 28-day rule, for at-fault claimants

The same 28-day rule applies: lodging inside 28 days preserves backdated weekly payments. Lodging late is still possible, but insurers can and do argue that the weeks between the accident and lodgement aren't payable. For an at-fault driver earning $1,500 a week, a ten-week late lodgement potentially walks away from $14,000 in backdated income support.

This is where the myth gets most expensive. An at-fault driver who's told "you're not entitled to anything" often doesn't lodge at all. Every week without a claim is a week of income support forgone.

How to lodge as an at-fault claimant

The mechanics are the same as any CTP injury claim:

1. Obtain the Personal Injury Claim Form for the MAIA 2017 scheme (available through SIRA).
2. Lodge with the CTP insurer of the vehicle involved — if you were the driver at fault, that's usually your own car's CTP insurer.
3. Provide a GP medical certificate and pre-accident income evidence (payslips, tax returns, business records for self-employed).
4. Respond to the insurer's information requests within their statutory timeframes.

The form itself isn't complicated. What trips at-fault claimants up is the psychological hurdle — the feeling that you caused this so you shouldn't ask for anything. The scheme is designed on a different premise: that injured people need treatment and income while they recover, and that arguing fault before the claim is paid would leave people destitute during that 52-week window.

How Accident Hub handles at-fault files

This is the part of the practice that genuinely sets us apart from a compensation law firm. We take at-fault claims because the statutory benefits are real, they're substantial, and someone needs to run them — and almost no one else does.

What we do:

• Lodge your CTP claim inside the 28-day window.
• Evidence your pre-accident earnings properly, especially for self-employed or variable-income claimants.
• Push back on any exclusion decisions where the evidence supports you.
• Coordinate your GP, physio, psychology, and specialist treatment — all paid through CTP, not out of your pocket.
• Run internal review and Personal Injury Commission applications where the insurer gets a decision wrong.
• Handle the car — repair, write-off, insurance liaison — as part of the same file.

We don't earn a contingency fee on statutory benefits — there's no damages lump sum at the end. We charge a transparent file fee, or in many cases the file is funded by the scheme itself. The numbers are explained up front, in writing, before any work starts.

Had a car accident? Call Accident Hub.

At-fault, not at fault, threshold, non-threshold — we take every file. If a compensation lawyer has turned you away because you caused the crash, that's exactly the call we were built for. The 52 weeks are yours. Let's lodge them.