WorkCover weekly payments indexation
If you’re in receipt of WorkCover weekly payments, your payments will be reviewed every year. This means that they may be adjusted slightly. Any adjustment in your weekly payments is based on movements in the state average weekly earnings of all Victorian workers.
The rest of this page will cover weekly payments indexation.
Table of Contents
What is indexation based on?
Indexation (an adjustment) of your WorkCover weekly payments is based on movement in the state average weekly earnings of all Victorian workers. This data is published by the Australian Bureau of statistics.
When your payments have been indexed, you should receive notification of this from the insurer.
How much is indexation, typically?
This depends. Sometimes there may only be a small increase or a small reduction in the state average weekly earnings. If this is the case, then there might be little to no change of your weekly payments amount.
If there has been a reduction in the state average weekly earnings (called negative indexation), then you should not notice any change in your payments. You should not see a reduction in your weekly payments.
What this means is that if indexation would result in a decrease in your weekly payments, then your payments for that particular year will not be adjusted for indexation. What happens is that that years negative indexation amount will be offset against a future positive indexation amount.
Here’s a a simple example of this.
If a negative indexation was result in a $20 per week reduction, this will not result in your weekly payments being reduced. If the following years indexation would result in a $40 indexation, then the previous years $20 reduction would be offset against the $40, result in a net indexation of $20.
Additionally, if you’re receiving the statutory maximum amount of weekly payments, then your payments will not be indexed.
When will payments be indexed?
Your weekly payments will be reviewed and indexed annually.
Your payments will be indexed on the anniversary of the day you became entitled to weekly payments, or alternatively on 1 July of every year.
If you disagree with the indexation calculation
If you disagree with the indexation calculation, you can contact the insurer and discuss the matter with them.
Alternatively (or additionally), you can lodge a request for conciliation. The reality is however very few matters progress to conciliation relating to indexation issues. If you want to proceed to conciliation with an indexation calculation issue, you should ensure that the indexation calculations have been done correctly.
Conclusion
If you’re in receipt of weekly payments from the WorkCover insurer, your weekly payments amount will be indexed annually.
What this means is that the amount you receive will be reviewed and potentially adjusted based on movements with the state average weekly earnings of all Victorian workers.
You will only ever receive an increase in weekly payments. Your weekly payments will not be reduced as a result of indexation.
If an indexation would result in reduction in your weekly payments, then any negative indexation would be set off against the next positive indexation.
