Our Compulsory Third Party (CTP) team is valued for their extensive experience and sound judgement. Combine that with excellent organisational skills, keen sense of timeliness and a deep knowledge of medical issues, and you have a team that’s second to none.

Our work ranges from general claims (including whiplash and fracture) right through to advice on major and catastrophic claims, characterised by injuries having various causes, complex liability disputes or damages which involve difficulty in terms of assessment. Proven advocacy skills also enable us to conduct our own Assessment Conferences at CARS. In recent years we have developed an expertise in administrative law, in response to prolific challenges to MAS and CARS assessments.

The Curwoods CTP team represents all five licensed CTP insurers in NSW. Practice Group Leader Andrew Gorman is also a Claims Assessor for CARS (appointed by the Motor Accidents Authority).  Recent matters in which we have successfully represented our insurer clients include:

• Successfully overturning a MAS certificate of 50% WPI, reduced to NIL on both physical and psychological grounds in Supreme Court proceedings brought by a claimant who alleged that severe paralysis confined him to a wheelchair.
• Achieving an outcome of less than 10% WPI in a pedestrian claim involving multiple physical and psychological injuries after 8 MAS assessments, including furthers and a review.
• Successfully overturning a MAS certificate in respect of impairment yielded by a traumatic brain injury achieving NIL% WPI following forensic investigations.
• Successfully maintaining a denial of indemnity after the insurer was joined to proceedings to argue why a plaintiff lifting gates onto the back of a truck was not an injury caused by the fault of the owner of the truck in its use or operation. The plaintiff's employer was found to be solely liable for his loss, the predominate cause of the plaintiff's injuries being an unsafe system of work.
• Achieving a verdict for the defendant on a Summons for leave to proceed out of time, where the plaintiff had engaged solicitors well before the expiry of the limitation period, but those solicitors had failed to provide any satisfactory explanation for their delay in commencing proceedings.
• Achieving a verdict for the defendant in an Administrative Law application where the plaintiff challenged the decision of the Proper Officer of MAS to refer an Application for Review to a Review Panel on the basis that the initial MAS Assessor had failed to properly apply the test of causation or give adequate reasons for a finding of an injury being causally related to a motor vehicle accident.
• Successfully appealing a decision in the Administrative Law Division of the Supreme Court that the Proper Officer of MAS had asked the wrong question when allocating an Application for Further Assessment to a MAS Assessor.

Our senior team members include:

• Andrew Gorman, Partner and CTP Team Leader
• Peter Hunt, Partner
• Ian Jones, Partner and Major Claims Team Leader
• Belinda Wightley, Special Counsel
• Renae Hamilton, Special Counsel
• Nathan Morehead, Senior Associate
• Vanessa Jason, Senior Associate