icare provides update on historical underpayments remediation
icare CEO Richard Harding has outlined progress on the remediation activities for injured workers who historically may have received incorrect weekly compensation payments dating back to 2012.
icare identified this issue and proactively alerted SIRA to it in February 2020. In March 2020 we proactively told the community and at that time estimated that up to 52,000 workers were impacted by up to $80 million based on very early analysis. Further work in March 2021 has estimated 23,000 workers may have been potentially impacted by up to $20 million. We have committed to remediating anyone who has been underpaid where we can.
"Getting injured workers their correct historical entitlements is an absolute priority for me and I want to make sure they receive them as quickly as possible where ever we can," Mr Harding said.
"We've been actively assessing thousands of files to ensure we can correct any identified underpayments to injured workers. However, the current legislative requirements make remediation a difficult and lengthy process.
"The legislation dictates that employers and injured workers need to provide the exact figures dating back 52 weeks prior to the injury—including detail such as sick leave, leave without pay, secondments, higher duties, overtime and more—but many employers and workers simply don't have this information.
"Of the 4,000 injured worker files assessed so far, around two-thirds did not have the required information provided by the employer or injured worker to do the calculation.
"To date, we've established that 56 injured workers have been underpaid in addition to 30 who have been overpaid. Further, we've repaid 24 injured workers a total of $260,000 as a result of the remediation process.
"icare has initiated a targeted outreach campaign in regional areas, including advertising. We have also written to injured workers with missing information and most likely to be impacted as part of a wider proactive review."
As the time taken to assess a single file is quite extensive, Mr Harding said icare was examining further options.
"We are working on developing solutions and will have more to say on this soon," he said.
icare continues to call on injured workers who received weekly compensation payments for injuries notified between October 2012 and October 2019 and wish to have their entitlements checked to request an assessment.
Injured workers are able to lodge a request by visiting www.icare.nsw.gov.au/assessment.
icare has invested $3.5 million to date to support the assessment and payment of injured workers who have been underpaid. Conversely, any worker found to have been overpaid has not been asked to repay any overpayments.
