WorkCover journey claims

Workcover journey claim

A WorkCover journey claim typically refers to when someone sustains an injury while they’re travelling to or from work from their home.

It is really important to note here that the law in Vic does significantly differ from other States.

The information here, as with all of our blogs, is only applicable to people injured in Victoria or where there may be a significant connection to Victoria in terms of their work related injury.

WorkCover journey claims in Victoria

In Victoria if you are travelling from your home to your work, or from work back to home, then you are unlikely to be entitled to WorkCover for any injury sustained.

This is because the law requires the injury to occur in the course of your employment for it to be considered a work related injury.

In certain other States there is some coverage under their work injury schemes for travelling to and from work, but this is not the case for Victoria.

This does not mean that there is no possible claim available to someone injured travelling to or from work, it would just mean that it would not be through the WorkCover scheme.

As an example, if someone is travelling to or from work and is involved in a motor vehicle accident (including trains, trams and buses) either as a driver, passenger or pedestrian then they will be covered by the Transport Accident Commission.

If the injury is caused in some other way by the negligence of another party, then you may have a claim against that party.

For example if you are struck by someone riding a bicycle in an unsafe way.

Travelling to and from work vs traveling for work

The key thing to be aware of here is the difference between travelling to and from home to work, and travelling for work.

The difference is very important because travelling for work is typically going to be covered under WorkCover if there is an injury.

The most obvious example of this is someone that drives a truck for work.

If they are moving a load of goods in the work truck from one place to another and are involved in an accident, then their initial benefits such as medical and like expenses and weekly payments, are likely going to be covered through WorkCover.

Less obvious examples of this we can illustrate through to cases that we have acted in previously.

In case one, a farm worker had commenced work for the day and had been working at one of the employers locations.

They then needed to travel to another location at another farm to perform more work there.

While travelling in their car to the second location they were involved in an accident.

The injured worker before receiving any legal advice, lodged TAC claim which was accepted. This was an error on the TAC’s behalf to accept the claim as it was clearly a work related injury, and the workers entitlements should have been through work cover.

The second case example was a worker that lived in a regional town, had been at work and then had to attend a training course in Melbourne. When travelling back to the home town from Melbourne, they were tragically killed in a high speed car accident.

Again, in this example the TAC became involved and were in the process of calculating benefits payable to the surviving spouse of the deceased worker.

We argued that this was a work-related injury as the worker was not simply travelling to or from work to their home, and was working the entirety of the travel to and from the conference.

Workcover accepted that this was a work-related injury and ultimately the surviving spouse received significantly more compensation through the WorkCover scheme as the dependency benefits payable are significantly greater under the WorkCover scheme.

‘Authorised recess’

Another important exception to the travel to and from home rule is what is known as an authorised recess.

Injuries occurring on an authorised recess are considered to be work related.

If for example it is permitted in your workplace to take a morning tea break by going to a local café, and you were somehow injured on the way to the cafe or returning, then this would be considered a work related injury despite there not being any work related task being performed. Another example would be driving to your home on your authorised lunch break and sustaining an injury – this is going to be considered in the course of your employment as you are on an authorised recess.

As you can see above from our examples above, in two separate instances that TAC accepted claims that should be WorkCover claims, both the TAC and WorkCover insurers (as well as employers) can get things wrong.

It’s our suggestion that you don’t rely solely on opinions provided to you by insurers or the employer or other parties about whether a journey claim is a WorkCover claim or something else.

It is best to get legal advice about this complicated topic before lodging any type of claim. It is possible to change schemes from TAC to WorkCover if a claim has been improperly accepted, but it would be essential to have legal advice before this is done.

Conclusion

A WorkCover journey claim is when a person sustains an injury while they’re travelling to or from work.

There are significant differences in the law between Victoria and other states when it comes to journey claims.

In Victoria, if you are injured while traveling to and from work, generally speaking you will not be entitled to claim under WorkCover.

However, if you were injured on an authorised recess or while travelling for work, you may have an entitlement under WorkCover.