Allianz sought a review of a 17% psychological injury rating. On July 3, 2026, a NSW review panel lifted it to 24%.
The claim dated back to February 12, 2022, when the claimant's stationary car was rear-ended and pushed into the vehicle in front. No emergency services attended. She later claimed psychological injury under the NSW Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017, the state's compulsory motor injury scheme.
Everything turned on one figure: whole person impairment, a percentage rating of lasting psychological harm. Clear 10% and the claimant gains the right to damages for non-economic loss, meaning compensation beyond financial losses. An assessor had put her at 17%, based on post-traumatic stress disorder. Allianz sought a review, and a delegate agreed there was reasonable cause to suspect a material error.
Here is what claims teams should note. Under this scheme, a review is not a narrow check on the disputed point. It is a fresh assessment of the whole question, so it can move in either direction. Here it moved upward.
The panel agreed with Allianz on the diagnosis. Its medical assessors found the crash did not meet criterion A of the DSM-5-TR for PTSD, the requirement for a qualifying traumatic event, saying it "was not a life-threatening event, nor did it involve exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury or sexual violence."
The injury survived anyway. The panel diagnosed panic disorder, agoraphobia, a specific phobia of driving and a persistent depressive disorder, all of which it found were caused by the crash. Rejecting the PTSD label did not defeat the claim.
Allianz also pointed to timing. The claimant did not report psychological symptoms to her GP for about a year. The panel was not persuaded this sank the claim, noting that "a lack of contemporaneous evidence in respect of the reporting of an injury following an accident is not decisive of causation." It accepted that COVID-19 lockdown and working from home delayed her return to driving, and that her early symptoms were first attributed to physical causes.
Two earlier accidents, in 2011 and 2020, were on file. The panel found no evidence of a pre-existing psychiatric diagnosis or treatment, and noted the accident need only be a contributing cause that is more than negligible, not the sole cause.
The panel assessed impairment at 24%, revoked the earlier certificate and issued a new one. The practical point for insurers is plain: seeking a review reopens the whole assessment, and agreeing with the insurer on the diagnosis did nothing to lower the impairment figure.
