Claimant’s Explanation for Delay not Full and Satisfactory

In Brief

• Section 6.14(2) of the Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017 (MAIA) provides that a claim for damages must be made within three years of the motor accident.
• Section 6.14(3) of MAIA provides that a claim for damages may be made more than three years after the motor accident if the Claimant has a full and satisfactory explanation for delay.
• In general terms, an explanation is “full” if it conveys what happened and why.
• Again. in general terms, an explanation is “satisfactory” if a reasonable person in the claimant’s position would have been justified in experiencing the same delay.

Facts

The decision in Arab v Allianz Australia Insurance Limited [2026] NSWPIC 317 was delivered on 3 June 2026 and published on 12 June 2026.

The Claimant was injured in a motor accident on 27 October 2021. She lodged an Application for Personal Injury Benefits on 3 November 2021. It was not until October 2025, however, that she lodged a claim for damages under common law.

In the meantime, the Insurer spoke to the Claimant on 12 June 2023 and advised of her entitlement to make a damages claim. Furthermore, the Insurer wrote to the Claimant on 23 June 2023, 1 May 2024 and 12 September 2024 and clearly informed her that she had a potential entitlement to damages and that she had to complete a form within three years of the accident.

The Member’s Decision

The Member confirmed that for an explanation to be full it needs to be complete in the sense that the explanation conveys what happened and why. The explanation does not have to be perfect and it does not need to recount every moment that elapsed.

The Member found that the Claimant’s explanation was not “full” for the following reasons:

• The Claimant gave no account of what transpired in the second half of 2022 or in 2023.
• The Claimant did not address whether she received the Insurer’s letter dated 23 June 2023 let alone whether she understood the contents or took any steps in response to the letter.
• More generally, the Claimant did not explain her failure to act after receiving the 23 June 2023 letter.

The Member confirmed that the concept of a satisfactory explanation requires an evaluative judgment as to whether the Claimant’s delay can be reasonably justified. The test does not require a Claimant to establish that all reasonable persons within the spectrum of their subjective features would have experienced the same delay. It is sufficient that some reasonable persons in the Claimant’s position would have experienced the same delay as the Claimant.

The Member found that the Claimant’s explanation was not satisfactory for the following reasons:

• A reasonable person in the Claimant’s position would not have, as the Claimant alleged, delegated responsibility for the management of her claim to her husband (as the Claimant alleged).
• A reasonable person in the Claimant’s position would not have been unaware of the legal requirements and timeframes, as the Claimant alleged, given that the Insurer wrote to her on three separate occasions to advise her of those legal requirements and timeframes.
• The Member was not satisfied that there was a reasonable, hypothetical person, in the Claimant’s position, who would have experienced the same delay as the Claimant.

Why This Case is Important

The decision in Arab provides a useful illustration of when an explanation for delay might be less than full and less than satisfactory. It is striking that the Claimant’s position was weak because the Insurer had advised the Claimant, in writing, what she had to do to pursue her entitlement to common law damages on three separate occasions prior to the end of the three-year time limit.