Claim pathways

Almost nobody starts at total and permanent disability (TPD) or income protection. People arrive from another system: workers comp winding down, transport accident payments ending, years on a Centrelink pension. These are the crossings, and being in one system does not close the others.

Ways in

Which of these sounds like where you are?

I don't know where to start

The whole interview from the first question, with nothing assumed and nothing pre-filled. Not knowing where to start is a situation this tool is built for, not a failure to have picked a better door.

I'm looking into this for someone else

For a partner, a family member or a friend. Question one asks who this is for, and the answer changes the page: what a fund or a scheme will tell you today without any paperwork, and what waits for a signed authority. Most of it can be done without them.

I'm on workers comp, the TAC (Transport Accident Commission), Comcare or the DSP (Disability Support Pension)

For a reader who already knows who pays. Picking the scheme here fills question 3, and the interview goes straight to what has arrived and what has changed.

My payments have stopped or changed

Starts from the money. The payments-stopped event is ticked at question 2, and the next question is who pays, because who pays decides whose published rules the change runs under.

I've had a letter and don't understand it

I heard the rules changed and I don't know if it's about me

Rules change, and most changes only reach claims first made on or after a set date. The interview asks roughly when the claim was made, and the page names the rules it drew and the date each one was checked. Not knowing that date is a normal answer, and the page names who can tell you.

I've been off work a long time

Most of what this tool can show runs on time from when work stopped. The stopped-work event is ticked at question 2 already, and the interview asks who pays, then the month and year work stopped.

I want to know what insurance I might have

The super branch. Insurance is commonly attached to super accounts, including accounts since closed, merged or rolled over, and what is attached to an account is a question a fund can answer without any claim existing. This door asks who pays now, the date work stopped, and the funds held around then.

My situation isn't one of these

Including Western Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT

Situations this tool does not describe yet.

This tool draws the published timetables it has checked: workers compensation in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia, the TAC, Comcare and the DSP. If the situation is not in that list, this page will not guess at it.

For Western Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT: we have not checked those rulebooks yet, so no scheme timetable is drawn for them. The parts that are national still apply: super, insurance inside super, and Centrelink. The interview can still run for those parts, and the page it builds says plainly which parts have not been checked.

Whatever the situation, three routes are open and free: the claims line printed on any letter about the claim, the member line of any super fund held when work stopped, and Legal Aid in every state and territory.

Run the national parts anyway

The crossings

A page for each crossing.

Each one sets out a scheme's own schedule, with the section numbers and the sources, and says plainly what that schedule does not decide about anything else you hold.

Every other door

The rest of the network.

If you want to talk it through

Enquiries open soon. When they do, the contact page is where to reach us: we'll explain which doors exist for your situation and, if you want, introduce you to a firm on our panel. You never pay us. Panel firms do.

We try twice, then we stop. There is no third call and no marketing list.