Sector Training Activities

Hot Topics (Session 1): No Fault Insurance – What will it mean for WA?

National Disability Services WA (NDS WA) invites your organisation to attend the first of its 2015 'Hot Topics' Breakfast Series events for Board Members, CEO's and Senior Management.

Western Australia continues to lag behind the rest of the nation in providing care and support to people who acquire their disability through catastrophic injury as a result of a motor vehicle accident. 

Most West Australians don’t realise that their current third party insurance does not automatically compensate them in the case of a motor vehicle accident, and they will face huge costs and/or years of legal action with no guaranteed outcome, along with their life changing disability. 

The current third party system is confusing as well as unfair. It divides people into two camps – those at fault and those not at fault – and it deals with them very differently, even when they have exactly the same injuries. 

For those where they are ‘at fault’ (and this is not necessarily related to reckless driving) or where there is no one to blame – think a kangaroo hitting the car – they are deemed ‘uncompensable’. They will receive state medical care until they can be released from hospital, but then they will face the huge financial pressures of funding house modifications, extra rehab, personal care, disability equipment, modified vehicles or whatever else is needed on top of their usual living costs. The evidence is that they, and their families who have to give up their jobs to care for them, often have to remortgage or sell their homes in order to afford the $4 million average cost. 

Join us as our panel discusses these issues and answers your questions on this critical issue for the Western Australian community.