10 common delays in accident settlements and how to fix them

Accident settlements in Australia stall for a handful of predictable reasons: medical timing, disputed liability, missing documentation, insurer processes, multiple parties, and court backlogs. The common delays in accident settlements are rarely mysterious once you know what to look for. Under the General Insurance Code of Practice, insurers must decide on a claim within four months of receiving it, or within 12 months where exceptional circumstances apply, and must respond to information requests within 10 business days. If yours is dragging past those markers, you have real options.

Immediate actions to take right now:

• Gather every medical record, receipt, and report you have and identify what is missing.
• Write to your insurer requesting a written timeline for their decision.
• Note the date you lodged your claim and count forward to the four-month mark.
• If the insurer has gone quiet, lodge a formal complaint with them or directly with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA).
• Speak with a personal injury lawyer, particularly if liability is disputed or injuries are serious.

Pro Tip: If you are in urgent financial need, ask your insurer about an advance payment. Under the Code, qualifying claimants can receive an advance within a short timeframe — you do not need to wait for the full claim to resolve.

Key takeaways

Accident settlements in Australia stall most often because of medical timing, disputed liability, missing documents, insurer processes, multiple parties, and court backlogs, and most of these causes have a concrete fix.

Table of Contents

• 1. Waiting for maximum medical improvement delays your settlement
• 2. Disputed liability slows everything down
• 3. Multiple parties and complex liability structures add months
• 4. Incomplete or missing documentation is the most avoidable delay
• 5. Insurance company processes and stall tactics slow settlements
• 6. Court backlogs and litigation phases extend timelines significantly
• 7. Negotiation delays and prolonged back-and-forth add weeks
• 8. Practical steps you can take now to reduce avoidable delays
• 9. Your rights under the General Insurance Code of Practice and AFCA
• 10. When a lawyer speeds up a stalled claim
• How Carelawyers approaches delay-prone claims
• Carelawyers can help if delays are costing you
• Sources

1. Waiting for maximum medical improvement delays your settlement

Settling before you reach maximum medical improvement (MMI) is one of the costliest mistakes an injured person can make. MMI is the point at which your treating doctors consider your condition stable — not necessarily fully healed, but unlikely to change significantly with further treatment. Until you reach it, nobody can accurately calculate future medical costs, lost earning capacity, or ongoing care needs.

Settling too early can leave those future costs entirely uncovered, because a signed release typically extinguishes your right to claim more. Insurers sometimes push early offers precisely because they know the full picture is not yet visible.

Documents to gather before MMI:

• Emergency department notes and discharge summaries.
• Referral letters from your GP to specialists.
• Surgical and procedure reports.
• Rehabilitation and physiotherapy summaries.
• Specialist prognosis letters confirming your condition is stable.

Medical record delays compound the problem. Hospitals can take weeks to release notes; specialists often have backlogs; records from multiple providers rarely arrive at the same time. For a soft-tissue injury, MMI might come within three to six months. For a spinal injury or traumatic brain injury, it can take two years or more, which is a primary reason serious injury cases routinely run 18–36 months.

Pro Tip: Request your records in writing the week after your accident, not the week you need them. Most providers take 4–6 weeks to respond, and some require a formal statutory declaration. Starting early means you are not the bottleneck when the insurer finally asks.

2. Disputed liability slows everything down

When fault is not clear-cut, the insurer cannot value your claim until the investigation is complete. A rear-end collision with one driver is straightforward. A multi-vehicle pile-up on a wet motorway with conflicting witness accounts is not.

Disputed liability triggers a sequence of investigatory steps: police reports, witness statements, CCTV footage requests, scene reconstruction, and sometimes independent expert reports from accident reconstruction specialists. Each step takes time, and each step depends on a third party who has no particular urgency to move quickly.

Preserving evidence in the first 48 hours after an accident is worth more than almost anything else you can do. Photographs fade in memory; CCTV footage is overwritten in days; witnesses become harder to locate. The claimants who get through liability investigations fastest are the ones who documented everything before they left the scene.

Evidence checklist for disputed liability claims:

• Photographs of all vehicles, road markings, traffic signals, and weather conditions.
• Names, phone numbers, and addresses of all witnesses.
• The police event number and a copy of the police report once available.
• CCTV footage requests sent to nearby businesses within 48 hours.
• Your own written account of events, dated and signed, prepared while memory is fresh.

Pro Tip: If an expert report is needed, ask your lawyer to instruct one immediately rather than waiting for the insurer to do so. An independently obtained expert report often moves faster and gives you a stronger negotiating position.

3. Multiple parties and complex liability structures add months

Add a second defendant and you roughly double the correspondence. Add a third and the timeline compounds further. Multi-vehicle crashes, workplace accidents involving a contractor and a host employer, or incidents on public land involving a local council all create multi-party files where no single insurer can resolve the claim alone.

The practical sequence in a multi-party file typically looks like this:

1. Your claim is lodged with the primary insurer.
2. That insurer notifies other potentially liable parties.
3. Each party’s insurer appoints its own adjuster and sometimes its own expert.
4. Adjusters correspond with each other to negotiate contribution percentages.
5. A joint settlement offer is eventually put to you, sometimes only after months of inter-insurer negotiation.

Uninsured drivers add another layer. You may need to pursue the nominal defendant scheme in NSW, which has its own procedural steps and timelines. Employers who dispute that an injury occurred at work, or third-party suppliers who deny their product caused harm, each bring separate investigations.

Practical step: In the first week after your accident, identify every party who might share responsibility. That means the other driver, their employer if they were working, the road authority if a hazard contributed, and any product manufacturer if equipment failed. A lawyer can help you map this quickly.

Pro Tip: For workplace injury claims involving multiple parties, notify your employer and the relevant insurer in writing on the same day. Delays in notification can be used to dispute the claim later.

4. Incomplete or missing documentation is the most avoidable delay

Most settlement delays that claimants can actually control come down to paperwork. An insurer cannot assess a claim it cannot see, and every time a document is missing, the file stalls while a request goes out and a response trickles back.

The most commonly missing items:

• Medical receipts and gap payment invoices.
• Wage records showing income before and after the injury.
• Vehicle repair quotes and total-loss assessments.
• Certificates of capacity or medical certificates covering every gap day off work.
• Receipts for out-of-pocket expenses (travel to appointments, medications, aids).

Step-by-step document assembly:

1. Open a dedicated folder (physical or digital) the day you lodge your claim.
2. Request medical records from every treating provider in writing, keeping a copy of each request.
3. Ask your employer for payslips covering the 12 months before the accident.
4. Obtain a repair quote or total-loss assessment from a licensed repairer within two weeks.
5. Keep every receipt, no matter how small.
6. Log every submission to the insurer with the date, method, and document name.

When an insurer asks for the same document twice, that log is your proof of prior submission. Send a brief cover note: “This document was previously submitted on [date] by [method]. Please confirm receipt.” It stops the cycle of repeated requests.

Pro Tip: Use a free cloud folder (Google Drive or Dropbox) to store time-stamped scans of every document. If your insurer later claims something was never received, you have a dated upload record to point to.

5. Insurance company processes and stall tactics slow settlements

Not every delay is intentional, but some are. Distinguishing between the two helps you respond correctly.

Operational delays are genuine: adjuster turnover means your file gets reassigned and the new adjuster starts from scratch; catastrophic weather events flood insurers with claims and push ordinary files to the back; expert report queues stretch to months when demand spikes.

Tactical delays are different. Serial document requests (asking for the same item in slightly different forms), lowball offers followed by weeks of silence, and unexplained “further investigation” notices are patterns that experienced claimants and lawyers recognise quickly.

Under the General Insurance Code of Practice, insurers must acknowledge your claim promptly, keep you informed of progress at least every 20 business days, and respond to your information requests within 10 business days. If yours is not doing that, you are not receiving what the Code guarantees.

Warning signs of a stall tactic:

• Repeated requests for documents you have already provided.
• A low offer with no supporting valuation, followed by silence when you push back.
• Vague “further investigation required” notices with no explanation or timeframe.
• Adjuster changes with no handover communication to you.

Responses that work:

• Send a written request for a specific decision date, citing the Code’s four-month timeframe.
• Escalate to the insurer’s internal dispute resolution team.
• Lodge a complaint with AFCA if internal escalation produces no result.
• Seek legal advice about whether interest may be payable for unreasonable delay.

Pro Tip: Keep a call log. Every time you speak with an adjuster, note the date, time, the adjuster’s name, and what was said. That log becomes evidence if you need to escalate to AFCA or a lawyer.

6. Court backlogs and litigation phases extend timelines significantly

Most accident claims settle without going to court. When they do not, the timeline extends substantially. Filing proceedings is sometimes a strategic step to force a serious insurer to the table; other times it is unavoidable when liability cannot be agreed.

Once proceedings are filed in NSW, the typical litigation phases add time in roughly this sequence:

1. Pleadings (2–4 months): Statement of claim, defence, and any cross-claims are filed and served.
2. Discovery (3–6 months): Both sides exchange documents, which can be extensive in serious injury cases.
3. Expert evidence (3–6 months): Medical experts, liability experts, and economists prepare reports and sometimes confer.
4. Listing for trial (6–18 months): Court lists are congested; a hearing date may be 12 months or more away once the file is ready.

A claim that might have settled in negotiation within 12 months can take three years or more once it enters the court system. That said, the majority of filed cases still settle before the trial date, often at mediation.

Ways to limit litigation delay:

• Serve expert evidence early and in a form the court accepts without amendment.
• Agree on a joint expert where possible to reduce the number of competing reports.
• Use mediation at the earliest opportunity rather than waiting for a court-ordered session.
• Keep pleadings focused; broad, vague claims invite lengthy defences and interlocutory disputes.

Pro Tip: Ask your lawyer about the car accident claim timeline stages specific to NSW before filing. In some cases, a well-drafted letter of demand citing the Code and AFCA escalation achieves a settlement faster than proceedings ever would.

Once a settlement is reached, there is still a short wait before funds arrive. Compliance checks, banking cut-off times, and lien clearances can extend the transfer of net settlement funds beyond the typical 1–3 days, sometimes to 5–7 days or more, as payment processing steps and data reconciliation work through the system. Industry-level events or participant issues can occasionally extend this further. Pharmacy liens and medical provider debts commonly cause post-settlement hold-ups; understanding pharmacy lien dispute resolution before you sign can save weeks.

7. Negotiation delays and prolonged back-and-forth add weeks

Even when liability is agreed and documents are complete, negotiations can stall. Insurers open with low offers; claimants counter; adjusters go quiet. This cycle is normal up to a point, but it becomes a delay when neither side has a clear framework for moving forward.

The main reasons negotiations drag:

• The insurer’s opening offer is significantly below a reasonable range and no explanation is given.
• The claimant has not yet reached MMI, so future losses cannot be quantified.
• There is a gap between what the claimant’s medical evidence says and what the insurer’s independent medical examiner says.
• The insurer is waiting for a further report before authorising a higher offer.

Larger settlements almost always involve more negotiation rounds. A claim worth $20,000 might settle in two exchanges. A claim worth $500,000 involving future care, lost earning capacity, and permanent impairment will typically involve formal schedules of loss, counter-schedules, and sometimes a joint conference of experts before a number is agreed.

The best practices for payments clearing recommend minimising manual intervention in settlement processes to reduce late-stage delays, a principle that applies equally to claim negotiations: the more structured and documented the exchange, the less time is lost to administrative back-and-forth.

8. Practical steps you can take now to reduce avoidable delays

A structured approach from day one cuts weeks off most claims. Here is a concrete playbook.

First 7 days:

1. Report the accident to your insurer and obtain a claim reference number in writing.
2. Photograph all injuries, vehicle damage, and the scene.
3. Request medical records from every treating provider.
4. Collect witness details and request the police report.
5. Open a dedicated claims folder and log every communication.

First month:

• Obtain wage records from your employer covering the 12 months before the accident.
• Get a vehicle repair quote or total-loss assessment.
• Confirm your treating doctor has documented every appointment and every gap day off work.
• Send a written request to your insurer asking for a decision timeline.

Ongoing (monthly):

• Follow up on any outstanding document requests.
• Check that the insurer has responded within 10 business days to any information you have provided.
• If no substantive progress has occurred in four months, lodge a formal complaint.

Communication script for an insurer update call:

“I am calling about claim reference [number]. I lodged this claim on [date]. Under the General Insurance Code of Practice, I understand a decision is required within four months. Could you confirm the current status and provide a written timeline for the next steps?”

Decision flow:

• No response to an information request within 10 business days: send a written follow-up citing the Code.
• No decision within four months: lodge a complaint with the insurer’s internal dispute resolution team.
• Internal complaint unresolved: escalate to AFCA.
• Liability disputed or injuries serious: seek legal advice immediately, not after the four-month mark.

Pro Tip: If you are struggling financially while waiting, ask your insurer in writing whether you qualify for an advance payment under the Code. Put the request in writing and keep a copy.

9. Your rights under the General Insurance Code of Practice and AFCA

Australia’s General Insurance Code of Practice sets binding timeframes that most claimants do not know about. Understanding them gives you a concrete basis for every escalation.

Key timeframes under the Code:

• Decision deadline: Four months from receipt of your claim, or 12 months where exceptional circumstances apply.
• Information request response: 10 business days after you request information about your claim.
• Progress updates: At least every 20 business days while the claim is being assessed.
• Advance payments: Where urgent financial need is established, an advance can be paid within five business days.

How to lodge a complaint:

1. Write to your insurer’s internal dispute resolution (IDR) team, citing the specific Code provision you believe has been breached.
2. If the IDR response is unsatisfactory or takes more than 30 days, escalate to AFCA.
3. AFCA is free for claimants and can direct insurers to pay compensation for unreasonable delay.

The Financial Rights Legal Centre makes clear that you do not need to wait for the Code’s deadlines before complaining. If a delay looks unreasonable at any point, you can and should complain. The Centre also notes that if an insurer has unreasonably delayed your claim, you may be entitled to interest from the date payment should reasonably have been made, and recommends seeking legal advice about this option early.

Pro Tip: When lodging with AFCA, attach your communication log, the dates of every insurer contact, and copies of any written requests that went unanswered. A well-documented complaint resolves faster.

Statistic callout: Under the Code, insurers must decide within four months or, in exceptional cases, 12 months. They must respond to your information requests within 10 business days and update you at least every 20 business days.

10. When a lawyer speeds up a stalled claim

Legal representation is not just about going to court. In delay-prone claims, a lawyer’s most valuable work often happens before any proceedings are filed.

What a lawyer does to break a delay:

• Sends a formal letter citing specific Code breaches and AFCA escalation, which tends to produce faster insurer responses than a claimant’s own letters.
• Arranges expedited independent medical examinations to break MMI deadlocks.
• Negotiates interim payments to relieve financial pressure while the main claim progresses.
• Manages multi-party correspondence so that inter-insurer delays do not fall on the claimant to chase.
• Prepares a formal schedule of loss that gives the insurer a clear, documented basis for a higher offer.

The cases that drag longest are almost always the ones where the claimant waited too long to get advice. By the time a lawyer is instructed, documents have been lost, limitation periods have been missed, and the insurer has had months to build a low-value position. Early advice does not mean early litigation — it means early control.

For serious injury claims, the difference between instructing a lawyer at month two versus month ten can be measured in both time and money. Catastrophic, multi-party, and insurer-stalling scenarios are where legal help most clearly shortens the overall timeline.

What to ask in an initial call:

• Have you handled claims involving [my type of injury/accident]?
• What specific steps would you take in the first 30 days to move my claim forward?
• Do you operate on a no-win, no-fee basis?
• How will you communicate with me, and how often?

Pro Tip: Consulting a lawyer about insurer disputes costs nothing under a no-win, no-fee arrangement. The risk of not getting advice early is almost always higher than the risk of getting it.

How Carelawyers approaches delay-prone claims

Most of the claims that come to us at Carelawyers are not new. They are claims that have already been sitting with an insurer for months, sometimes longer, with no clear resolution in sight. The pattern is familiar: a claimant who has been managing their own correspondence, chasing records, and waiting for a decision that keeps getting pushed back.

What we do first is triage. We identify which delays are unavoidable (genuine MMI timing, legitimate investigation) and which are not (repeated document requests for items already supplied, offers with no supporting rationale). From there, we act on the avoidable ones immediately: formal letters citing the Code, expedited record requests, and where appropriate, AFCA complaints.

Every client at Carelawyers speaks directly with their lawyer. No call centres, no handoffs to paralegals for the substantive work. For a stalled claim, that direct access matters because decisions need to be made quickly and communicated clearly.

Carelawyers can help if delays are costing you

Delays in accident settlements are not just frustrating. They affect your income, your treatment, and your ability to move forward. Carelawyers works with injured people across Sydney and NSW on car accident claims, workplace injuries, public liability, and serious injury cases, all under a no-win, no-fee arrangement with fixed-fee options for certain matters.

If your claim has stalled, we can review the situation, identify causes of the hold-up, and take steps to move it forward. You can read more about what damages cover in an accident claim and the full car accident claim timeline on our site. To speak directly with a lawyer about your situation, contact Carelawyers today.

Sources

• General Insurance Code of Practice 2020
• Financial Rights Legal Centre
• How Long Does a Personal Injury Settlement Take? 2026 | Fair Settlement
• How Long Does A Personal Injury Settlement Take? Timeline
• Common Delays in Personal Injury Settlements (And How to Avoid Them) | Horn Wright, LLP
• Best practices for payments clearing and settlement activities (New York Fed)
• Payment settlement process (Rapyd)
• Settlement vs clearing — the hidden plumbing of payments (Circle)
• Payment, clearing and settlement systems: selected issues (BIS)

This article is general information, not a substitute for advice from a qualified lawyer. Consult a qualified legal professional about your own circumstances before acting on anything here.

Recommended

• Why Insurers Deny Serious Injury Claims: Your 2026 Guide
• Serious Injury Claim Dispute Options Explained
• How To Prove Fault In A Car Accident Claim