Share your workers comp bludger stories here

Dhoni Dakurri

Cancelled
Oct 18, 2016
1,744
1,940
AFL Club
West Coast
Worked in the industry years back. Might not be obvious to the average Joe, but the scale of and tax payer money being wasted on fraudulent workers comp claims is staggering. And the system with its pathetically weak legislation almost encourages it - from dodgy doctors in cahoots with dodger vocational rehab providers to sign off workers with nothing injuries as unfit, because they continue to get paid by the government with little accountability. To health professionals charging insurers for literally doing nothing, making up billable hours. If you want to sit on your arse on compo then you can - the only thing that will stop you is your moral conscious. Which thankfully probably applies to most.

From experience, the worse offenders are council workers, the defence force, wharfies and teachers. Unparalleled scamming. I’ve seen PTSD claims for bee stings and for rolling ankles in soccer games. I’ve seen surveillance footage of people deliberately falling over items they have placed down in the aisles of shops.

I’ve seen people paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars for being told they work too slow.

Share your stories here, and feel free to ask questions about this absolute bin juice of an industry.
 

Dhoni Dakurri

Cancelled
Oct 18, 2016
1,744
1,940
AFL Club
West Coast
Insurance companies will hire private investigators, so claiming you have a back injury and yet are playing footy as in inside mid on the weekends is not going to help your case.

Mind you lockdown would have helped some out by not being able to go outside during quarantine.

Surveillance footage actually counts for little when presented as evidence at arbitration hearings. Almost always the arbitrator will side with the worker. Just add it to the bill...
 
The chance the 'taxpayer funds' lost to this are anywhere near significant is zero and the amount of dodgy claims to correct claims would be infinitesimal.

The biggest drain on the taxpayer are pensioners by an absolute mile.
 

Hawk Dork

Cancelled
30k Posts 10k Posts Zombie Lover BeanCoiNFT Investor
Feb 9, 2005
48,389
43,427
on the road to nowhere
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Hawks
The chance the 'taxpayer funds' lost to this are anywhere near significant is zero and the amount of dodgy claims to correct claims would be infinitesimal.

The biggest drain on the taxpayer are pensioners by an absolute mile.
Not Singapore slingers submarines and airplanes ?
 

burge13

Brownlow Medallist
Jan 25, 2019
11,526
21,895
AFL Club
Adelaide
I used to see people claim 'stress' when acting in a higher position and this would be approved for lengthy work cover.

So people applied for a job, got it, it was obviously harder than the previous (hence higher pay), claimed stress, and got workcover. Why not just go back to your previous job?! Why would this ever be approved...

That said, it wouldn't cost that much to the government compared to all their waste. $600 laptops are $4,000 to state government departments. If you're worried about wasted funds, start with the procurement rorts
 

Hawk Dork

Cancelled
30k Posts 10k Posts Zombie Lover BeanCoiNFT Investor
Feb 9, 2005
48,389
43,427
on the road to nowhere
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Hawks
That said, it wouldn't cost that much to the government compared to all their waste. $600 laptops are $4,000 to state government departments. If you're worried about wasted funds, start with the procurement rorts
Airport land
 

Dhoni Dakurri

Cancelled
Oct 18, 2016
1,744
1,940
AFL Club
West Coast
The chance the 'taxpayer funds' lost to this are anywhere near significant is zero and the amount of dodgy claims to correct claims would be infinitesimal.

The biggest drain on the taxpayer are pensioners by an absolute mile.

Incorrect. Ratio of legitimate to dodgy claims is certainly not “infinitesimal”


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app
 

raskolnikov

Cancelled
10k Posts 30k Posts Wordler Werewolf Player Essendon Player Sponsor 2021 - Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti and Archie Perkins Essendon Player Sponsor 2020 Essendon Player Sponsor 2019 Song Contest Winner - 5+ Rounds
Apr 1, 2002
36,677
36,723
Cap Coast
AFL Club
Essendon
Other Teams
Gold Coast Suns
Teachers? In my over 20 years of teaching in Australia I've never known a teacher to take worker's compensation.
 

Dhoni Dakurri

Cancelled
Oct 18, 2016
1,744
1,940
AFL Club
West Coast
Teachers? In my over 20 years of teaching in Australia I've never known a teacher to take worker's compensation.

I'm a teacher now too and work with several with ongoing claimants. No lunch time and recess duty for them - kick back and take it easy..
 
Last edited:
Jul 14, 2005
18,723
29,560
AFL Club
Carlton
Other Teams
Chelsea FC
The problem with stress claimants is by tanking their career for a couple of years they put themselves beyond the pale and make themselves unemployable by the time they hit the 130 week mark. Pretty easy to determine they have some work capacity at that stage, so inevitably their claims get torched and they actually have to go out and find themselves another job, which isn't easy when you've spent the past 2 and half years doing the absolute bare minimum and your work history has come to a grinding halt. No one's going to hire someone straight off a 2-year stress claim.

I read somewhere the WorkSafe scheme was 800 (could be 80?) million in debt, and really there's no surprises there either. You can be 80 and still claiming physio and medication from an injury from 3 decades prior, when likely your body is just old and deteriorating and subject to natural wear and tear which will never quite recover.

I used to see people claim 'stress' when acting in a higher position and this would be approved for lengthy work cover.

So people applied for a job, got it, it was obviously harder than the previous (hence higher pay), claimed stress, and got workcover. Why not just go back to your previous job?! Why would this ever be approved...

That said, it wouldn't cost that much to the government compared to all their waste. $600 laptops are $4,000 to state government departments. If you're worried about wasted funds, start with the procurement rorts

The agent will usually side with the claimant. It's far easy than going through the rigmarole of organising medical exams, circumstance reports when you're on a 28 day timeframe and the assessor can always fall back on 'did the injury occur at work?' and where they in the course of their usual duties?' - obvious, base-level stuff that funnels a bunch of awful, impractical claims into motion. At that point you're stuck with the claim long-term.
 
Feb 11, 2012
1,856
1,950
Adelaide
AFL Club
Adelaide
Over a decade ago, my manager at the time tried to claim work cover for her wrist as she claimed she overdid it working on spreadsheets a few days before. I could tell her boss, who was a pretty good bloke, wanted to say what he thought of that but restrained himself.
 

revo333

Norm Smith Medallist
Jan 7, 2018
6,755
5,902
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
I worked with a lady that got 2-3 years of compo with a wrist injury, Didn't see her for about a year and then finally she turns up and says she can't do anything so they made her stand around watching the rest of us work. She had no shame and usually had a smug look on her face.

It lasted about a month and then I didn't see her again and everytime someone asked where she was the topic of conversation was quickly changed.

Every 3 months she would go to the doctor and she always somehow got a clearance to keep getting time off.

All for a wrist injury, what a rort!
 

Dhoni Dakurri

Cancelled
Oct 18, 2016
1,744
1,940
AFL Club
West Coast
I worked with a lady that got 2-3 years of compo with a wrist injury, Didn't see her for about a year and then finally she turns up and says she can't do anything so they made her stand around watching the rest of us work. She had no shame and usually had a smug look on her face.

It lasted about a month and then I didn't see her again and everytime someone asked where she was the topic of conversation was quickly changed.

Every 3 months she would go to the doctor and she always somehow got a clearance to keep getting time off.

All for a wrist injury, what a rort!

Sadly a common story. All it takes is for a doctor to sign a medical certificate saying you’re either unfit for work, or only fit for suitable duties. Workers walks in to doctor. Doctor says “what do you want me to tick?” And done. Rinse and repeat. I don’t know how people can live with themselves doing this, but there a thousands that do.
 
Incorrect. Ratio of legitimate to dodgy claims is certainly not “infinitesimal”


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

It's low enough that there are far bigger issues to get your knickers in a twist about. Unless you are an ACA producer and you need to find workers comp bludgers performing dodgy renovations while making Lebanese kids fat.
 
Back