Motor Accident Compensation in Australia: CTP Schemes State by State

Australia runs eight separate compulsory third party (CTP) motor accident compensation schemes, one per state and territory, and whether a claim is paid on a no-fault basis or requires proving another driver's fault depends entirely on which scheme applies.

Compulsory third party insurance, eight different schemes

Every Australian state and territory requires an owner to carry compulsory third party (CTP) insurance before a vehicle can be registered, so that a person injured in a motor accident has somewhere to claim. That is where the similarity ends. New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory pay no-fault statutory benefits regardless of who caused the crash. Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia are fault-based: a claimant generally has to prove another driver caused the accident before CTP responds at all. Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia each also run a separately named no-fault scheme for catastrophic injury specifically, so the same accident can sit inside two different pieces of legislation at once. Access to a common-law damages claim, on top of any statutory benefits, is gated differently again in almost every state.

Comparing the eight CTP schemes

The scheme in each state and territory

New South Wales

New South Wales runs a hybrid scheme under the Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017 (MAIA), with the earlier Motor Accidents Compensation Act 1999 (MACA) still governing accidents that happened before 1 December 2017. No-fault statutory benefits are available regardless of fault, but a common-law damages claim faces two separate gates: it is barred outright if the injuries are threshold-injury-only or the claimant was more than 61% at fault, and even once that first gate clears, non-economic-loss damages need permanent impairment above 10%. Statutory benefits must be claimed within 3 months, damages claims within 3 years. NSW's current indexed dollar benefit figures could not be independently verified for this page because SIRA's own site blocked automated access during research; the mechanisms above are confirmed directly from the Act itself.

Victoria

Victoria runs the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) scheme under the Transport Accident Act 1986. TAC pays no-fault statutory benefits even when the claimant caused their own accident, and a separate common-law track is open only to a "serious injury," met automatically at 30% or more whole person impairment or through a narrative test. Claims must generally be lodged within 12 months, extendable to 3 years at TAC's discretion. Current dollar benefit figures are indexed annually and published on TAC's own site, not the printed Act, which runs well behind the current amounts.

Queensland

Queensland is fault-based: the Motor Accident Insurance Act 1994 pays compensation only once another driver's fault is established, and a driver who was entirely or partly at fault cannot claim under their own CTP policy for their own injuries. A separate no-fault scheme, the National Injury Insurance Scheme Queensland (NIISQ), covers eligible catastrophic injuries regardless of fault. A Notice of Accident Claim must reach the insurer by the earlier of 9 months after the accident or 1 month after first consulting a lawyer, and court proceedings must start within 3 years.

Western Australia

Western Australia also runs a fault-based common-law CTP scheme, under the Motor Vehicle (Third Party Insurance) Act 1943, administered by the Insurance Commission of Western Australia (ICWA). Notice of a claim must be given as soon as practicable, and court proceedings must start within 3 years. Non-pecuniary loss is set by a three-tier dollar scale, not a whole person impairment percentage. A separately named no-fault scheme, the Motor Vehicle and Workplace Accidents (Catastrophic Injuries) Act 2016, covers catastrophic motor vehicle injuries and, since 2024, workplace injuries, regardless of fault.

South Australia

South Australia requires CTP insurance from one of 5 competing insurers operating inside regulator-set premium bands, rather than a single state insurer. General CTP is fault-based, and non-economic-loss damages need an Injury Scale Value above 10 on a 0 to 100 scale. A separate no-fault Lifetime Support Scheme covers catastrophic injury regardless of fault, including for a driver who caused their own crash. CTP claims should be lodged within 6 months where possible, with 3 years as the hard outer limit for both a CTP claim and a Lifetime Support Scheme application.

Tasmania

Tasmania runs a simpler scheme than the states above: the Motor Accidents Insurance Board (MAIB) pays no-fault scheduled benefits under the Motor Accidents (Liabilities and Compensation) Act 1973, alongside a common-law damages track that, on a direct reading of the Act and Regulations, carries no whole person impairment percentage gate at all. Notice must reach MAIB within 1 year, extendable up to 5 years by the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (TASCAT). MAIB's own guidance states a common-law claim generally has up to 3 years, though that figure could not be independently confirmed against Tasmania's Limitation Act directly this session.

Northern Territory

The Northern Territory runs the simplest structure of all 8: the Motor Accidents (Compensation) Act 1979 pays no-fault benefits to anyone injured in a Territory motor accident, and common-law damages are abolished outright, with no carve-out for a severely injured claimant. Claims should be made within 6 months, a discretionary deadline the Commission may waive, and are barred absolutely after 3 years.

Australian Capital Territory

The Australian Capital Territory runs a genuine hybrid under the Motor Accident Injuries Act 2019: no-fault defined benefits are available to everyone injured in a motor accident, and a separate common-law damages track opens once a claimant reaches 10% or more whole person impairment, or clears an alternative "Significant Occupational Impact" pathway roughly 4 years and 6 months after the accident. The application window for defined benefits is just 13 weeks, extendable to 2 years; a common-law claim has 5 years.

Motor accidents on a work journey

An employee injured in a motor accident while driving for work, or while commuting to or from work in some states, may have a claim under workers compensation as well as, or instead of, CTP, depending on the state and the circumstances of the journey. That interaction differs by jurisdiction and is not covered on this page. If the accident happened on a work journey, see workers compensation in the relevant state before assuming CTP alone applies.

Interstate accidents

Which state's CTP scheme responds to a crash that happens outside the state where the vehicle is registered was, across the primary sources checked for this page, the least consistently documented question of any covered here. Some regulators describe a vehicle's own CTP cover as travelling with it regardless of which state the accident happens in. Others state or imply narrower rules, and New South Wales' Nominal Defendant provisions expressly exclude a vehicle already covered by another state's compulsory scheme rather than duplicating cover. Do not assume one state's rule generalises to another. Each state and territory page in this section states what its own regulator or insurer has confirmed on this point, and says so plainly where that was not confirmed. If an interstate-registered vehicle is involved in an accident, confirm directly with the insurer or regulator named on the relevant state page before relying on any general rule.

CTP deadlines and Australia's general limitation rules

Every CTP and motor accident scheme covered on this page sets its own claim notification and court-proceeding deadlines inside its own Act, separate from Australia's general civil statute of limitations. A missed CTP notice deadline does not necessarily end a claim. Most schemes allow a late claim with a satisfactory explanation for the delay, subject to an absolute outer limit that is usually, but not always, 3 years. See Australia's statute of limitations rules for how the general civil deadline works and how it differs from the accident-specific deadlines described above.

When an Accident Is Fatal

When a motor vehicle accident kills someone, the CTP scheme's death benefits are usually the first payments a family sees, but they sit alongside a separate court claim the family may also hold: the compensation-to-relatives action under the state's wrongful death legislation, plus the estate's own surviving claim. Which route matters more depends on the state's scheme design and the facts. See wrongful death claims in Australia for who can claim, what the court claim covers, and the time limits that run alongside the scheme deadlines on this page.