What is compensation

What compensation is

Compensation can help support you after an injury. It can be used to pay for things like:

medical expenses
support you need in your home
money you couldn’t earn because you couldn’t work due to your injury.

You may have received a compensation payment or support if something changed how you live your life. For example, you‘re injured in a car accident or a public place.

Compensation can be made in different ways

Compensation can be a lump sum payment you get once, or an agreed number of payments over time. It can be paid to you by an individual or their insurance company.

Compensation can also be ongoing supports you get from a government insurance scheme. For example, Work Safe, Lifetime Care and Support or the Transport Accident Commission. We call these statutory schemes.

You need to let us know about your compensation

You can still apply to the NDIS if you get compensation. You can also be an NDIS participant and still claim compensation if you’re injured.

It’s your responsibility to let us know if you’ve received compensation or are in the process of making a compensation claim.

To tell us if you’ve received compensation or are making a compensation claim:

call us on 1800 800 110
tell your NDIS partner when you apply
talk to your my NDIS contact
email your completed compensation information form to [email protected].

We might need your consent to collect and share your information with third parties. We’ll ask for this consent if we need it.

Download the compensation consent form:

Compensation consent form (DOCX 722KB)

What compensation is like

When recovering costs of previous NDIS supports

You can continue to use your NDIS plan while any compensation claim is in progress.

We might need to recover an amount from your compensation payment once your claim is finalised. We call this a recoverable amount.

This amount won’t be more than we’ve funded for supports relating to your injury. It’s calculated from the date you first started using the NDIS or the date of your injury, whichever is later, until the day before your compensation claim was finalised.

Tell us about your compensation claim

We’ll recover any amount owed from the compensation payer or insurer if you tell us about your compensation claim before it’s finalised. We’ll pay you the remaining balance once they pay us.

Recoverable amounts after your claim is finalised

We’ll recover any amount owed from you if you tell us about your compensation claim after it’s finalised and you’ve been paid.

We need compensation information to create your plan

The NDIS rules say we can’t fund supports that are already funded by another service, including by a compensation payment.

We use the information about the compensation you receive when we create your plan or do a plan reassessment with you.

This information helps us decide if we need to adjust your NDIS plan to account for your compensation or supports so you don’t get double funding.

If we adjust your NDIS plan

We may adjust the funding in your NDIS plan after you’ve received a compensation payment. We call this a compensation reduction amount (CRA).

A CRA is the amount of funding you need to contribute to your own care and support from the compensation you received.

We use the information you gave us about your compensation to calculate this amount. You can use our compensation calculator to estimate your CRA.

This calculator gives an estimate only. Your CRA is calculated from the information we get after your claim is finalised. This means the final CRA you see in your plan might be different to the calculator’s estimate.

We’ll work with you and give you information on the CRA before it’s applied to your plan. We’ll send you a letter once your plan has been adjusted.

If you have special circumstances

You can apply for consideration of special circumstances if your circumstances are unusual, uncommon or exceptional.

We’ll look at your application and consider a combination of factors. We might reduce your recoverable amount or CRA.

To apply for special circumstances:

call us on 1800 800 110
email [email protected].

Tip: Do you need more information or help with compensation?
Contact the compensation team by calling 1800 800 110 or emailing [email protected].
You can give consent for someone to act on your behalf to help you with your compensation and NDIS plan. This could be a family member, lawyer or compensation payer.

If you disagree with a compensation decision

Call us on 1800 800 110 or email us at [email protected] to talk to us about a decision.

You can ask us to review if you’re not happy with a decision we’ve made about your plan. Learn more about decision reviews.

On this page:

Related information

Compensation calculator

What is reasonable and necessary

Guide to your first plan