Workers Compensation WA: WorkCover WA Claims, Payments and Deadlines

Workers compensation in Western Australia is run by WorkCover WA under the Workers Compensation and Injury Management Act 2023, and a claim generally must be lodged within 12 months of the injury.

Workers compensation in Western Australia sits under the Workers Compensation and Injury Management Act 2023, which replaced the old Workers' Compensation and Injury Management Act 1981. This guide covers claim deadlines, weekly payments, medical expenses, permanent impairment lump sums, the common-law pathway, dispute resolution and employer obligations, all sourced to WorkCover WA and the Act's own current text.

Who Runs Workers Compensation in WA

WorkCover WA is the statutory authority that oversees the scheme, monitors compliance with the Act, and runs the dispute resolution system. Unlike WorkCover WA, WorkSafe WA is the separate agency that enforces general workplace safety law, so a worker reporting an injury and a workplace lodging a safety incident are often dealing with two different bodies.

Insurance under the scheme is privatised, not a single government fund. Employers must hold a policy with a licensed private insurer or be licensed as a self-insurer. WorkCover WA also runs a Default Insurance Fund that steps in when an employer has failed to insure, so an injured worker is not left without a payer because their employer broke the rules.

Which Act Applies to Your Injury

The Workers Compensation and Injury Management Act 2023 commenced on 1 July 2024 and repealed the 1981 Act. A common assumption is that older injuries stay under the old Act, but that is not how the transition was written. The 2023 Act expressly operates as a continuation of the former Act, and it extends to an injury suffered before commencement day and to an employer's liability that arose before commencement day. A weekly-payments claim that was still pending under the 1981 Act at commencement is now dealt with as a claim under the 2023 Act.

The exceptions are narrow: a common-law damages proceeding already validly commenced in court before 1 July 2024 continues under the former common-law provisions, and certain dust-disease causes of action that accrued before 14 November 2005 instead have the new Act's common-law provisions extended to them, conditional on an assessment or settlement having been made under the former Act. Outside those two carve-outs, the current 2023 Act governs, whatever year the injury happened.

Who Is Covered

The Act's general test covers a person under a contract of service, an apprentice under a registered training contract, and a defined category of contractors who personally perform the work, do not sublet it, and are not carrying on their own trade or business in doing it. Regulations can also prescribe further categories of workers as covered or excluded. Where a worker is supplied through a labour hire arrangement, the labour hire company, not the host business, is treated as the employer. Jockeys and working directors have their own deeming rules; a working director is generally not treated as a worker unless the company opts in through its insurance policy or is a self-insurer.

Reporting an Injury and Claim Deadlines

A claim must generally be made within 12 months after the injury occurs. A claim is made by giving the employer a completed claim form together with a certificate of capacity. If the delay or a defect in the claim results from mistake, absence from the state, or another reasonable cause, or if it would not prejudice the employer's defence, a late or defective claim is not automatically invalid, either ground on its own is enough.

Once an insured employer receives the claim, it must be forwarded to the insurer within 7 days, and failing to do so carries a fine of up to $5,000. If the employer does not forward the claim, the worker can give it directly to the insurer. The insurer or self-insurer must then issue a liability decision within 14 days of receiving the claim. Workers who are also considering a broader employment issue, such as a dismissal that follows an injury, can read recordinglaw.com's guide to notice of termination in Australia for how notice periods work when an employment relationship ends.

Weekly Payments

Income compensation pays 100 percent of the worker's pre-injury weekly rate for the first 26 weeks. After 26 weeks, it steps down to 85 percent of the pre-injury rate. Payments are capped at a maximum weekly rate set by regulation and floored at a minimum rate tied to the worker's award or the state's minimum conditions of employment, so the floor varies per worker rather than being a single dollar figure.

As of 1 July 2025, the maximum weekly rate of income compensation is $3,163, calculated under the Act's own formula as twice the average of the Australian Bureau of Statistics all-employees average weekly total earnings figures for WA. A worker's total income compensation over the life of a claim is also capped at a lifetime ceiling, the general maximum amount, which stood at $273,220 as of 1 July 2025. The Act's own printed text still shows the figure $243,991 in section 538(1), but that number is the amount at the date the Bill was introduced into Parliament, not the current live figure; the Act's own note says it is superseded by later indexation orders, and WorkCover WA republishes the current amount every 1 July. The general maximum amount is indexed annually to Wage Price Index movement and, by the Act's own terms, can never be reduced by an indexation adjustment.

Medical and Other Expenses

Medical and health expenses compensation is capped at 60 percent of the general maximum amount, which was $163,932 as of 1 July 2025. That limit can be increased in two ways: an arbitrator can order a standard increase of up to a further 40 percent, and where a worker's assessed whole-person impairment is at least 15 percent, a further special increase of up to 190 percent of the general limit becomes available. The employer or insurer must notify the worker in writing within 14 days once medical or health expense payments reach 60 percent of the limit.

Miscellaneous expenses, including first aid, emergency transport, wheelchairs and other appliances, travel, and impairment-assessment costs, are not capped at all. Workplace rehabilitation expenses compensation is capped separately at 7 percent of the general maximum amount, or $19,125 as of 1 July 2025.

Permanent Impairment Lump Sums

A permanent impairment lump sum is capped at the general maximum amount applying on the date of injury. Noise-induced hearing loss has its own division with its own minimum thresholds: an initial claim needs assessed loss of at least 10 percent, and a further claim needs at least 5 percent, paid as a lump sum capped at 75 percent of the general maximum amount, or roughly $204,915 as of 1 July 2025. Dust disease has a separate impairment compensation pathway with its own medical panel process; the current lump-sum figure under that pathway was $81,966 as of 1 July 2025.

Common-Law Damages

WA allows common-law damages, but only through a formal election and only above a set impairment threshold. A worker must have whole-person impairment assessed at at least 15 percent, and that assessment must be recorded by the Director as the supporting basis for the worker's election to pursue damages instead of continuing under the statutory scheme. Once registered, the election cannot be withdrawn.

If the worker's assessed impairment is under 25 percent, electing damages has a real cost: income compensation is reduced for 6 months after the election is registered, then stops altogether, no permanent impairment compensation is payable for that injury at all, and medical, miscellaneous and workplace-rehabilitation expenses compensation for costs incurred after registration is also lost. For workers assessed under 25 percent impairment, damages are also subject to a statutory cap, the maximum damages amount for less than 25 percent impairment, which stood at $573,766 as of 1 July 2025. There is no common-law damages entitlement at all for noise-induced hearing loss, and no damages are available once a compensation settlement agreement has been registered for the injury. In a fatal claim, the Dependant Lump Sum Entitlement was $683,050 as of 1 July 2025. The partner's share (or partners', divided in proportion to loss of financial support) ranges from 100% down to 75% of that entitlement depending on the number of dependent children, 90% with one child, a 5%-per-child sliding scale for two to five, and a flat 75% only once there are six or more children.

Resolving Disputes

WorkCover WA runs a two-stage dispute process: conciliation first, then arbitration if the dispute is not resolved. A Director and a Registrar, both WorkCover WA officers, oversee the Conciliation Service and the Arbitration Service, and an arbitrator's decision is binding and enforceable in court. WorkCover WA's own guidance points to a conciliation stage that often resolves within around eight weeks, though that is a service target the agency describes in its process guidance, not a fixed deadline set out in the Act itself.

Employer Obligations and Return to Work

Employers must establish and implement a documented injury management system that is available to workers, and failing to do so carries a fine of up to $5,000. Once a worker is certified as partially incapacitated, the employer must establish a return-to-work program as soon as practicable, developed as far as reasonably practicable in consultation with the injured worker; this also carries a fine of up to $5,000 for non-compliance. An arbitrator, on a worker's application, can order an employer to establish or implement a return-to-work program if it fails to do so on its own. During a protected period after an injury, an employer must give a worker a notice of intention to dismiss before dismissing them, an added layer of protection that sits alongside, not instead of, an employee's ordinary rights under Australia's unfair dismissal and general protections frameworks.

Cross-Border Work and Comcare

Comcare is a separate Commonwealth scheme that covers Australian Government employees, Australian Government authorities and corporations, and private corporations licensed to self-insure under the Commonwealth Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988. Workers covered by Comcare generally sit outside the WA scheme, a matter of Commonwealth law rather than something WA's own Act addresses directly. WA's Act does address one specific Commonwealth interaction directly: an employer is not liable for compensation under the WA Act where a worker's injury arises from employment on a ship covered by the Commonwealth Seafarers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1992.

Related Reading

Workers who are also weighing a separate employment dispute, such as a dismissal, underpayment, or a change to casual status around the time of an injury, may find recordinglaw.com's guides on casual employee rights in Australia and wage theft and underpayment in Australia useful background, and the general statute of limitations in Australia guide for how time limits work outside the workers compensation system. For how the other Australian states and territories structure their own schemes, see the guides to workers compensation in South Australia and workers compensation in Tasmania.