Serious injury? Injury compensation lawyer, Cowra

Most people never need to think about impairment percentages. If your injury is serious, you probably will. The scheme's rules divide injuries by type first, threshold or not, and then, for some entitlements, by the degree of lasting impairment. This page explains both in general terms. Your own claim depends on your diagnosis and on the insurer's decisions, which can be reviewed.

A serious injury can change more than the next few months of work. It can limit the kind of work you can do for years, or permanently. In a damages claim, that is called loss of future earning capacity, and it can be a significant part of a serious injury claim. It generally needs evidence from your doctors, your work history and sometimes vocational experts.

The definition works by exclusion. An injury is generally threshold if it is soft tissue damage with no nerve damage and no torn tendon, ligament, meniscus or cartilage, whether the tear is complete or not, or if it is a psychological injury the scheme classes as threshold. Injuries outside that description, such as fractures, torn ligaments or brain injuries, are generally more than threshold.

The line also decides whether common law damages are open. With only a threshold injury, they generally aren't. With a more serious injury, you may be able to claim damages if another driver was at fault and you weren't mostly at fault. That is why a threshold decision is often the most important decision the insurer makes about a serious injury.

There's usually no single moment when WPI is measured. Opinions may come from treating doctors, from doctors the insurer arranges, and, where the two sides disagree, from a medical assessment through the Personal Injury Commission. Timing matters, because injuries can improve or worsen for months. A lawyer can advise whether an assessment is premature before you rely on it.

• Whether every injured body part is included
• How complete and current your medical records are
• Scans or tests your doctors have ordered

A crash can cause psychological injury as well as physical injury, and sometimes instead of it. Some psychological injuries are classed as threshold injuries; others are not, depending on the diagnosis. Anxiety, low mood, flashbacks or fear of driving are worth raising with your GP early, both for your own sake and so the injury is recorded and properly diagnosed.

Whole person impairment, or WPI, is a percentage that describes how much a lasting injury affects the body as a whole. It isn't a measure of pain, and it isn't a measure of what you've lost. It's a medical assessment made under set guidelines once an injury has stabilised. In a CTP claim, WPI matters mainly for damages: non-economic loss is only available where WPI is more than 10%.

It's easy to overstate the 10% line. You don't need more than 10% WPI to claim damages for past and future loss of earnings; you need an injury that's more than threshold, another driver at fault, and not to have been mostly at fault yourself. The 10% line decides pain and suffering, and it also affects some timing rules for a damages claim.

Serious injury claims rest on medical evidence gathered over time: hospital records, imaging, operation reports, specialist opinions, and treating doctors' notes that track your progress. Your own records add the human detail. Start collecting early, keep everything in date order, and make sure each doctor knows about all your injuries, not just the one they're treating.

• Imaging reports, such as X-ray, CT or MRI, where done
• Reports from a treating psychologist or psychiatrist, if any
• Records of how the injury affects your work
• Any impairment assessment, and your response to it