Concern over rise in mental injury claims

by Resolve Editor Deb Eccleston

Early intervention is key to addressing the rising number of mental injury claims in Australia.

The number of mental injury claims continues to rise in Australia, with statutory benefits paid by WorkCover for primary mental injuries increasing from $51 million in 2017-18 to $209.2 million in 2023-24.

WorkCover Queensland Chief Legal Officer and Company Secretary Janine Reid said WorkCover data showed mental injury to be one of the most common injury claims faced by those in the insurance and legal industries.

Speaking at the AILA 2024 National Conference, Ms Reid attributed the increase in primary mental injury claims to legislation and policy amendments – such as the Presumptive Legislation for first responders experiencing PTSD introduced in May – and greater awareness of mental health in workplaces.

“There's been a deliberate attempt by the Queensland Government to make things easier for people with mental injuries to make claims because we want to reduce the stigma of raising mental health concerns and make it easier for people to lodge their claims,” she said.

“In the last five years or so there’s been a significant increase in the amount of money being paid on claims for primary mental injuries.”

Real people, not numbers

Primary mental injuries occur in the workplace related to a trauma and include assault, exposure to violence, pressure, bullying or harassment. Secondary mental injuries occur at the same time as a physical injury or as a consequence of a physical injury.

Joining Ms Reid in the session was Suncorp Queensland CTP Claims Executive Manager Kylie Horton, who said both primary and secondary mental injuries were “a wicked problem for all insurers, particularly CTP insurers in Queensland” with secondary mental injury claims on the rise.

“Over one-third of the claims that are lodged in our business have a secondary site claim attached to the physical claim,” Ms Horton said.

“At the moment, Suncorp is receiving about 400 claims a month, so it's a large number of claims coming through and for us it's really trying to identify as early as possible those claimants that we need to get in and support immediately.”

Ms Horton said Suncorp claims data showed a spike from 2021 to 2023, which she also attributed to the community’s awareness around mental health which was “naturally flowing through into our claims”.

While the data was compelling, Ms Reid reminded delegates that these weren’t just numbers, but real people. It’s a fact never far from Ms Horton’s mind, given Suncorp is the largest personal injury insurer in Australia.  

Caption: L-R Kylie Horton and Janine Reid

Striving to make a difference

Ms Horton said she would like to see more money spent on rehabilitation and treatment for people rather than rising legal costs.

“What we’re observing is that the claims cost around economic loss in particular is growing at a rate that is concerning to us as a business, because it means that we're not doing the best job possible getting people back to work and that's something that we need to start getting right,” Ms Horton said.

“The other area that is alarming to us as a business is that plaintiff legal costs continue to increase.

“For us, it's really trying to understand how we can reduce the durations of these claims so that those legal costs don't necessarily need to keep climbing.”

Several initiatives were in play to address the rising number of mental injury claims.

Ms Reid said early intervention support and faster decision making helped improve the experience of claimants, and a new psychosocial risk screening pilot would by rolled out by WorkCover in coming months.

“We've also taken a good look at our practices and how we're managing claims, so we're just closing off the tender to engage some researchers to help us with a review of our practices against the published frameworks that discuss mental injury claims management,” she said.

Ms Horton said Suncorp had also spent a lot of time “holding the mirror up to ourselves”.

“We’re taking a good, hard, long look at how we manage clients and some of the challenges that we have and what we can do to improve and get better outcomes for those injured claimants,” she said.

That included providing early intervention, flexibility and doing “a little bit extra to help that person get on with their life” within the realms of legislation around reasonable and necessary treatment.  

“The review definitely confirmed for us that there's more that we can do to provide support through treatment and rehab and the like to make sure that people return to work or return to health as quickly as possible,” Ms Horton said.

Photo credit: AILA 2024 Conference photos supplied warringtonphotography.com.