Personal Injury
Fatal Accident Compensation

Payment of funeral expenses

The compulsory third party (green slip) insurer of motor vehicles involved in fatal road accidents are covered by the “no fault” statutory benefits scheme for the cost of funerals following fatal motor vehicle accidents.

Under the scheme reasonable funeral expenses are payable by the green slip insurer even if the deceased person was at fault for the accident, or if no one was at fault. Reasonable funeral expenses are likely to include the costs of funeral cars, the funeral director, burial or cremation costs, newspaper announcements, flowers, headstones and so on.

Compensation for loss of financial and personal support

This area of compensation is referred to as “compensation to relatives” claim. These claims for loss of financial and personal dependency are fault-based. In other words, those claiming the compensation need to be able to prove that the fatal accident was caused by the driver of a motor vehicle or other registered vehicle. Contributory negligence by the deceased has to be taken into account, with compensation being reduced by the percentage of blame attributed to the deceased person.

Typically, compensation to relatives claims are made for loss of financial dependency by the deceased person’s spouse or de facto partner and/or dependent children of the deceased.

Such claims are often very substantial if the deceased was a high income earner and had provided financial support to his or her partner and/or children.

Not only are claims for loss of financial dependency available to those “left behind”, compensation is also available for the loss of personal services, such as housekeeping, lawn and yard maintenance.

Compensation to relatives claims can be finalised relatively quickly, compared to claims for serious personal injuries, which take significant time to stabilise. Compensation to relatives claims are basically exercises in establishing what the deceased person was earning before the accident, what that person spent on himself/herself and what financial and personal services the deceased person provided to family members.

These claims are brought by one financially dependent person on behalf of all other dependants.

Compensation is available even if the relatives of the deceased were only partially financially dependent.

Compensation is paid by a single tax-free lump sum. If any of the dependants are minors, court approval will be required at any proposed settlement.

The lump-sum compensation is divided between the dependants according to a long-established formula.

Compensation to relatives claims can be complex, particularly in cases involving extended families and partial dependency. Furthermore, strict time limits apply.

It is therefore particularly important for one of the dependants, usually the partner of the deceased, to seek legal advice or expert legal advice as soon as practicable after the fatal accident.

Compensation for psychiatric injuries

If the relatives of someone negligently killed in a motor vehicle accident suffer psychiatric injuries as a result of the accident compensation is available in a tax-free lump sum if certain criteria are met.

These claims are called “nervous shock claims”.

In this country compensation is not available for grief, unlike jurisdictions such as the USA and UK. Compensation is only available to those who have suffered a recognisable psychiatric injury. It is of course often extremely difficult and somewhat odious to distinguish between grief and a psychiatric injury.

Grief affects people in different ways. Some cope and some don’t. Often the psychiatric problems do not arise until 6 to 12 months after the tragic loss.

If nervous shock is established, claimants will be compensated for “pain and suffering”, past loss of income, future loss of income and future loss of earning capacity.

These days such claims do not include the cost of psychiatric/psychological counselling, antidepressant medication and the cost of care if the claimant requires domestic and other assistance because of his or her psychiatric condition. These expenses and the cost of care are covered indefinitely by the combination of the green slip insurer of the motor vehicle involved in the accident and Lifetime Care and Support.

Compensation for the pain and suffering created by the psychiatric injury (nervous shock) require the psychiatric injury to constitute a greater than 10% whole person impairment. (As is the case with physical injuries).