Before you start
Three days of work, some of it with longer deadlines
Not every clock on this page runs out at 72 hours. Police notification runs 28 days. Lodging the claim runs 28 days for one purpose and three months for another. What the first 72 hours decide is whether you can meet any of those deadlines comfortably, because everything later depends on details that are only available now: the event number, the other driver’s insurer, a photograph of the intersection, and a doctor who examined you while the injury was fresh.
Nothing here asks you to work out whose fault the crash was. NSW statutory benefits are paid regardless of fault, so that question changes nothing about what you should do this week. If you want the treatment side handled while you deal with the rest, our car accident injury doctors and physiotherapists see people at exactly this stage.
1. Safety, and 000 if anyone is hurt
The clock: right now
Move out of live traffic if the vehicles can be moved safely, and put hazard lights on if they cannot. Call 000 if anyone is injured, if a vehicle is blocking the road, if someone appears affected by drugs or alcohol, or if a driver refuses to give their details. An ambulance attendance also creates the first independent record of your injury, which is worth having even when the injury seems minor at the roadside. Adrenaline is very good at hiding a neck injury for a few hours.
2. Report it to police
The clock: within 28 days, and sooner is better
A crash involving injury has to be notified to police within 28 days. Do it at the scene where police attend, and otherwise through a police station or the online reporting channel in the days after. What you are collecting is the police event number. Insurers ask for it on the claim form, and a claim lodged without one attracts questions that a claim with one never gets. Write the number somewhere you will not lose it before you do anything else.
Source: SIRA, Guide for people injured in a motor vehicle accident. Checked September 2026.
3. Swap details before anyone leaves
The clock: at the scene
Take the other driver’s full name, residential address, phone number, licence number, vehicle registration and, if they know it, their CTP insurer. Registration is the one that matters most, because it is what lets anyone find the CTP policy afterwards. Take the same details from any witness who stops, even briefly. Witnesses are almost impossible to find later and are decisive when two accounts of the same intersection disagree.
4. Photograph what you can
The clock: at the scene, or as soon after as you can
Photograph both vehicles from several angles, the damage close up, the position of the cars before they are moved, the road surface, the signage, the traffic lights and the weather. Then photograph anything visible on your own body: bruising, seat belt marks, grazing. Bruising develops and fades over a few days, and a photograph taken on day one supports a clinical finding recorded on day three in a way that nothing else does.
5. See a doctor early
The clock: the first few days
This is the step people skip, and it is the expensive one to skip. Get examined even if you are walking and talking. A gap between the crash and the first medical record is the single most common thing an insurer points at later when it questions whether an injury came from the crash at all.
There is a mechanical reason too. Weekly payments under a CTP claim depend on an unbroken run of Certificates of Fitness, each covering a period of no more than 28 days, and the rules are specific about who may sign them. The very first one is reserved to a treating medical practitioner. Physiotherapists and psychologists can take over the certificates that follow, but only a doctor can open the sequence. So the first appointment is not just a check-up. It starts something that then has to keep going.
Source: SIRA, Motor Accident Guidelines 4.68 and 4.69; Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017 s 3.15. Checked September 2026.
6. Tell the vehicle’s CTP insurer
The clock: as soon as you can
Your claim goes to the CTP insurer of the vehicle involved. Six insurers are licensed to write CTP in NSW: AAMI, Allianz, GIO, NRMA, QBE and Youi. If you cannot work out which one covers the vehicle, or you are simply not sure what happens next, SIRA runs a free helpline called CTP Assist on 1300 656 919 that will tell you. Where the vehicle at fault cannot be identified or was uninsured, the claim goes instead to the Nominal Defendant, and the Nominal Defendant Fund is managed by SIRA.
Making contact early also starts the insurer’s own clock. Section 6.19 gives it four weeks to tell you whether it accepts liability for your statutory benefits over the first 52 weeks, and an insurer that lets that window pass without notifying you properly is deemed to have accepted.
Source: SIRA, licensed NSW CTP insurers; SIRA, Nominal Defendant; Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017 s 6.19. Checked September 2026.
7. Ask about early treatment
The clock: within 28 days of the crash
You do not have to wait for a claim to be accepted before anyone treats you. For the first month after a crash the scheme allows a small amount of early care ahead of any claim: a doctor’s appointment and a couple of allied health sessions, if the insurer agrees to it and a reference number has been issued. The window shuts at day 28 and does not reopen. Ask for it explicitly, because it is not always offered. How the funding works after those first sessions is set out on our CTP treatment approvals page.
Source: SIRA, Motor Accident Guidelines 4.78–4.79. Checked September 2026.
8. Lodge the application
The clock: 28 days for back-pay, three months at the outside
The form is the Application for personal injury benefits, and it goes to the CTP insurer of the vehicle. Two deadlines govern it and they are commonly confused. Under section 6.13(1) the claim must be made within three months of the accident. Under section 6.13(2), if the claim is not made within 28 days, weekly payments are not payable for any period before the claim was made. Treatment benefits are not affected by the 28-day point, but income is, and the loss is silent. Nobody rings to tell you what you gave up.
A claim made after three months is still possible with a full and satisfactory explanation for the delay under section 6.13(3), but you do not want to be arguing that if you can avoid it. Lodge inside 28 days if you physically can, even if parts of the form are incomplete.
Source: Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017 s 6.13. Checked September 2026.
9. Start a file and keep it
The clock: ongoing, from day one
One folder, physical or on your phone. Put in the police event number, the claim number once you have it, the name and direct line of your claims officer, every Certificate of Fitness, every letter from the insurer, every receipt, and a short dated note each week about pain, sleep, work and driving. That last one sounds trivial and is not. Weekly payments during the first 13 weeks are calculated at 95% of the shortfall between your pre-accident weekly earnings and what you can still earn, and from week 14 to week 78 at 80% where the loss is total or 85% where it is partial. Every one of those calculations rests on a record of what you could and could not do.
Source: Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017 ss 3.6 and 3.7. Checked September 2026.
The printable one-pager
Ten lines. Print it, screenshot it, or send it to whoever is helping you.
- 1.Make the scene safe. Call 000 if anyone is injured or the road is blocked.
- 2.Report the crash to police and write down the event number. 28 days, sooner is better.
- 3.Take the other driver's name, address, phone, rego, licence and insurer.
- 4.Photograph both vehicles, the road, the signage and any visible injury.
- 5.See a doctor in the first days, even if you feel manageable. The first Certificate of Fitness has to come from a doctor.
- 6.Find out which CTP insurer covers the vehicle. If you cannot, ring CTP Assist on 1300 656 919.
- 7.Ask the insurer about pre-claim treatment: one GP visit and two allied health sessions inside 28 days.
- 8.Lodge the Application for personal injury benefits. Within 28 days keeps weekly payments back-dated.
- 9.Three months is the outer limit for making the claim at all.
- 10.Keep every certificate, receipt, letter and claim number in one folder from day one.