Guide

Notifying an injury at work

Notifying is the first step in a New South Wales workers compensation claim, and it is a small one. This guide sets out who has to be told, what happens once they know, and what to do if nothing happens at all.

General information, not legal advice. This page sets out how the law generally applies. It does not take account of your circumstances, and you should get advice about your own situation before acting on it. The official sources this page is written from are listed on it; where they differ from anything here, they are the authority.

In short

Tell your employer you have been hurt at work, and ask for it to be written down. icare NSW says to let your employer know as soon as possible, and your employer then has to notify the insurer that handles its claims.

Do it now rather than waiting to see whether the injury settles. If you have already mentioned it to a supervisor in passing, confirm it in writing today.

Notifying and claiming are two different things

Notifying is telling your employer you have been injured at work. Making a claim comes after it, when the insurer is asked to accept the injury and pay weekly payments or treatment. Much of the early confusion comes from treating the two as one thing.

You notify your employer; your employer notifies the insurer, which in this scheme usually means a claims service provider acting for it. icare NSW puts the first part plainly: let your employer know as soon as possible. An employer must then notify its claims service provider within a short period fixed by the scheme, which icare publishes on the same page.

Whether the injury is covered is the insurer’s decision, made in writing once it has been told. You do not have to work that out first.

Serious incidents also have to be reported by an employer to the work health and safety regulator, under separate law. Reporting under one system does not do the job of the other.

Put it in writing, even if you have already said it

Telling a supervisor in the moment is a real report and it counts. It is just harder to prove later, when that supervisor has moved on and the conversation is remembered two ways. A short email on the day removes an argument that would otherwise sit at the centre of the claim.

The date, the time and where it happened.
What you were doing, and what happened.
Which part of your body, and what you felt.
Anyone who saw it, and who you told first.
Whether you have stopped work, or are still working.

Not every injury has a moment. If yours built up over months, say so rather than inventing a date. If your workplace keeps a register of injuries, ask for a copy of your entry.

Tell the doctor it happened at work

When you see a doctor, say plainly that the injury happened at work, and ask for a NSW workers compensation certificate of capacity. icare describes it as the form your nominated treating doctor uses to set out whether you can work, what duties you may manage, and what treatment you need.

What goes into the first medical record tends to matter more than anything argued later. If the notes say you hurt your back lifting at home, because that is the shorthand that came out while you were in pain, that version stays on the file. Our guide to certificates of capacity covers the rest.

If your employer has not passed it on

Sometimes nothing happens. The form is not sent, a small employer is unsure what to do with it, or the relationship has already gone sour. You do not have to wait it out.

icare NSW allows an injured worker, or someone acting for them, to notify the claims service provider directly where the employer has not, through a form on its website. It asks for your details and your employer’s, the date, time and description of the injury, a contact at the workplace, the date you stopped work if you have, and whether you have needed treatment.

Notifying the insurer yourself is not a complaint about your employer. It is the scheme working as it was built to when a notification stalls.

Time limits are real, and no number is printed here

There is a limited period after an injury within which a claim has to be made. A claim made later can still be accepted where there is reasonable cause, and there is a further, much narrower allowance beyond that. Which period binds you depends on your injury, on when it was notified, and on what you have been sent.

No number of days appears here on purpose: the legislation was amended in 2025 and again in 2026, with parts commencing across 2026. icare and the State Insurance Regulatory Authority publish the current periods, and the Acts themselves are on the NSW legislation register.

If an insurer has already written to you, the date on that letter probably matters more than the date of the injury, because a shorter period usually runs from it. Disputes about those decisions go to the Personal Injury Commission, not to a court in the first instance.

Do not take a day count from a website, including this one. Take the letter, the certificate and your dates to someone who can read them against your claim.

What usually happens

Get seen to first

Nothing here comes before treatment. If the injury is serious, that is the only thing that matters today.

Tell your employer

Tell a supervisor, a manager, or whoever your workplace nominates, and say that it happened at work.

Confirm it in writing

Send a short email the same day with the date, what happened and which part of your body. Keep a copy outside your work account.

Say it is work related at the appointment

Ask for a NSW workers compensation certificate of capacity, and read the history on it before you leave.

Check the insurer has been told

Ask which insurer or claims service provider holds the claim, and the claim number.

Keep everything together

Certificates, letters, emails and a note of who you spoke to and when. To anyone reviewing it later, that is the claim.

Common questions

I told my supervisor but never filled in anything. Does that count?

It counts as having told someone, and it is worth far more than nothing. It is just harder to prove later. Send a message now confirming what you reported and roughly when, and say you are putting it in writing because nothing was recorded at the time.

My employer has asked me not to lodge it.

Asking does not make a notification go away, and you can notify the claims service provider directly through icare. If you are worried about your job as well as your injury, say so early: employment protections and workers compensation run on different timetables and are dealt with in different places.

The injury developed over months. What date do I give?

Give the date you first noticed it, or first sought treatment, and say that it developed over time rather than in one incident. For injuries like this the date is often itself in issue, and the rules for fixing one are applied to an accurate description, not a tidy guess.

Do I need a lawyer to notify an injury?

Usually not. Notification is a short practical step, handled between a worker, an employer and the insurer. Free help exists in New South Wales for the parts that are not: the NSW courts list free services, including LawAccess NSW, run by Legal Aid NSW, and community legal centres.

If the injury was a while ago

Late notification is common and it is not automatically the end of a claim. What tends to matter is what was said at the time, what was written down, and what has been sent to you since. A few sentences and your dates are enough.