A 20-year-old motorcycle death claim has come back to life, and QBE could not shut the door.
On June 12, 2026, the District Court of New South Wales cleared Tracey Ann Collins to sue QBE Insurance (Australia) Limited over a fatal crash from December 2005, rejecting the insurer's argument that the claim had run hopelessly out of time.
The facts are stark. Collins's de facto partner, Fraser Revell, died on December 16, 2005, after crashing a borrowed motorcycle at Bringelly. The court recorded that he was 37, unlicensed and intoxicated, with a post-mortem blood alcohol reading of 0.190g/100ml. Collins and the couple's two children had a compensation claim, but under the Motor Accidents Compensation Act it needed to be filed within six months. It was not. By December 2008 it had lapsed, and in January 2014 her then-lawyers wrote to the insurer's lawyers withdrawing and discontinuing it.
For most insurers, that closes the file. Not this time. Collins's new solicitors filed proceedings on March 7, 2025, nearly two decades after the crash. QBE, the compulsory third party (CTP) insurer of the motorcycle, asked the court to dismiss the case. Collins asked for leave to proceed late. The two motions were heard together.
Everything turned on whether Collins could give a "full and satisfactory explanation" for the delay. The intervening years were, on the court's account, chaotic: depression, alcohol and cannabis use, the loss of her home, children in trouble with police and with addiction, and drawn-out family law battles over a grandchild. Her doctor recorded treatment for depression since the death and concluded, in words the court quoted, "On account of this I believe she lacked motivation to attend to matters relating to her de facto partner's death."
Acting Judge Levy SC found Collins credible and accepted she never truly grasped the 2014 withdrawal. The words "withdraw" and "discontinue," he found, were not hers. He also took aim at a December 19, 2013 letter from the insurer's former solicitor, which warned of a costs order and cited section 348B of the Legal Profession Act against her lawyers. The judge called that letter "somewhat menacingly in my view" and found its costs message had "scared" an unwell claimant off a claim that was already late.
QBE argued the claim was dead anyway, relying on Wahhab v Insurance Australia Ltd for the rule that a claim cannot be made twice. The court set Wahhab aside: it did not involve a late claim, had moved through the statutory steps, and turned on a withdrawal for missing particulars, none of which fit here.
Two hurdles remained, and Collins cleared both. The parties agreed the damages threshold under section 109(3)(a) was $89,750. With funeral costs of $7,185.24 counted, the balance to reach was $82,564.76, and the judge found the family's comfortable past lifestyle and the children's dependency would likely carry damages past it. On QBE's claim that 20 years made a fair trial impossible, the court noted the insurer still held 17 witness statements and the coronial transcript, and that the bike's owner could probably still testify.
A word on who is involved. The motorcycle was owned by P & G Safeguard Pty Ltd, trading as McArthur Motorcycles, a company de-registered in 2009. Its collapse is part of why Collins is pursuing the insurer directly under section 5 of the Civil Liability (Third Party Claims Against Insurers) Act 2017. The man who operated that business, who the court noted gave evidence at the coronial hearing, is not a defendant.
QBE's motion was dismissed with costs, and Collins won leave to continue.
For claims teams, the lesson is plain. A withdrawn, decades-old CTP claim is not automatically dead. Where a claimant shows real incapacity, and where an insurer's own costs warnings are read as having frightened off a vulnerable person, a court can reopen a file long after it looked shut.
