A New South Wales panel revoked an earlier impairment certificate, lifting a bus passenger's psychiatric rating from 3% to 4% while narrowing her diagnosis.
The Personal Injury Commission's medical review panel handed down its determination on September 2, 2026, in a dispute between the claimant and Allianz Australia Insurance Limited over how much lasting psychiatric harm a 2022 bus incident had caused. At issue was her whole person impairment - the percentage doctors assign to permanent harm.
The claimant was a passenger on a bus that stopped suddenly on November 7, 2022, throwing her forward so that she hit her head on the padded seat in front of her. She had not been treated for any psychiatric condition before the accident and had used buses, including her usual route, without anxiety.
An earlier assessor had certified her in August 2025 at 3% impairment, diagnosing a phobia of bus travel plus major depressive disorder in remission with some ongoing symptoms. The claimant asked for a review, which reopens the medical evidence from scratch.
The panel took a different view. It found she had generally adjusted well and was not considerably affected by psychiatric disability. It diagnosed a single condition - a situational phobia tied to buses - and did not adopt the depression finding the earlier assessor had recorded. It assessed her impairment at 4%.
On the cause, the panel accepted that the accident had had a more than negligible effect on her psychiatric condition. Before the accident she travelled on public transport, including her usual route 800 bus, without restriction or anxiety; afterwards she avoided that route, used buses less often, and still managed trains and planes without difficulty. That was enough, the panel found, to connect her remaining symptoms to the accident.
The panel noted it was not required to choose between competing medical opinions but had to reach its own, treating the review as a fresh hearing of the evidence. It adopted the findings of the two medical assessors who examined the claimant, revoked the earlier certificate, and put the impairment at 4%.
For claims teams, the significance sits in that number. Under the Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017, a claimant cannot recover damages for non-economic loss - pain and suffering - unless psychiatric impairment is assessed above 10%. At 4%, this claimant stays well short of that mark, and lifting the figure by a single point does not change it.
