Personal injury lawyers and families really want to know what impact compensation has or will have on NDIS funding.
NDIS repayments at the time of settlement are usually straightforward, though the grounds and the best process for making a successful challenge are not.
NDIS Compensation Reduction Amounts (CRAs), later applied to future NDIS plans, have been even more of a challenge for lawyers and families to predict or to engage with.
They often come through after the personal injury lawyer is no longer involved, and the families have no basis for working out if the calculation provided to them is correct.
Thankfully, those of us who specialise in this area are seeing more and more CRA calculations coming through from the NDIS Compensation Recovery Team. This has been after many years of delay.
The notion that a person’s future NDIS funding would be impacted by their personal injury compensation has been around since the NDIS was first conceived. The idea is to prevent people ‘double dipping’.
The NDIS Rules have, since inception in 2013, specified that the NDIA would seek to identify the ‘NDIS component’ of the compensation (by way of a formula) and apply it to reduce NDIS entitlements.
But the formula to be applied to settlements was, and remains, complex. At least now, as we see more calculations, it’s clear that the NDIA team are starting to find some consistency.
We are noticing the impact of payments for past care, certain state government repayments at settlement, and family or client spending on supports pre- and post-settlement.
We are also noticing that the figures used for life expectancy, as determined by the Office of the Scheme Actuary, are often at odds with expectations and this is having a significant impact on the annual reduction amount.