There is no time limit on the submission of a claim and a person may submit a claim for a retrospective period of incapacity i.e. a claim for arrears of payments. Each claim must be investigated and assessed on its own merits.
When considering a person’s entitlement to arrears payments the delegate should consider whether the person would have been incapacitated for work but for the effect of the accepted injury. Some other issues to consider are:
when exactly did the person leave the workforce and for what reasons;
is there any contemporary medical evidence that the person was actually incapacitated for work at that time;
if in receipt of payments from Centrelink, what was/were the stated cause(s) of the incapacity for work according to Centrelink records; and
is there any indication that the person might have earned, or might have been able to earn, an income during the period.