If the driver who caused your motor accident in Queensland cannot be identified or was not insured, the claim is made against the Nominal Defendant, a statutory body that stands in for the missing insurer.
By Jack McDonaldPartner, Gold Coast
If the vehicle that caused your accident in Queensland cannot be identified, or it turns out the vehicle was unregistered or uninsured, the claim does not simply fall away. A statutory body called the Nominal Defendant stands in for the missing insurer and answers the claim in its place.
What the Nominal Defendant is
Every registered vehicle in Queensland carries compulsory third party insurance as part of its registration, and a motor accident claim is normally made against the insurer of the vehicle at fault. The Nominal Defendant exists for the situations where that ordinary pathway breaks down, either because no insurer can be identified or because the vehicle was unregistered and therefore uninsured.
The scheme sits within the Motor Accident Insurance Act 1994 and is overseen by the Motor Accident Insurance Commission. The Nominal Defendant is funded by a levy on every registered vehicle and is managed by the Commission, which is why the claim is answered even though no premium was ever paid for the vehicle at fault.
When a Nominal Defendant claim applies
Two situations commonly lead to a Nominal Defendant claim.
The first is a hit and run, where the at fault vehicle left the scene and cannot be identified despite reasonable efforts to trace it. The second is an accident caused by a vehicle that was unregistered at the time of the collision. In both situations the injured person can still pursue compensation, but the claim is directed at the Nominal Defendant rather than a named insurer.
Proper inquiry and search
Where the vehicle cannot be identified, the injured person has to show that proper inquiry and search has been made to establish the identity of the vehicle. This is a specific requirement of the Queensland scheme, and a claim can fail on this point alone.
In practice that means reporting the accident to police as soon as practicable, checking with witnesses, and following up any partial detail that was noted at the time, such as part of a number plate, the make or colour of the vehicle, or the direction it was travelling. Requests for nearby security or dashcam footage, and notices placed at the scene or in local media, can also form part of the search. Keeping a record of each step taken is as important as the step itself.
A certain time frame applies to giving notice of a claim against the Nominal Defendant, and it is shorter and more strictly applied than the time frame for a claim against a known insurer. The evidence needed to identify a vehicle also degrades quickly, whether that is a witness memory or footage that gets overwritten within a set period.
How the claim proceeds
Queensland has a single, fault based scheme. There is no separate statutory benefits stage, so the injured person needs to establish that the accident was caused by the negligence of the driver of the unidentified or unregistered vehicle before any compensation is payable. Once that is established, the claim covers the same heads of damage as any other Queensland motor accident claim, including treatment, lost income and, where the injury is serious enough, general damages assessed under the injury scale.
The claim follows the same pre court process as a claim against a licensed insurer: a notice of accident claim form, an investigation by the Nominal Defendant, a decision on liability, an exchange of evidence, and a compulsory conference before any court proceedings. Our guide to CTP claims in Queensland sets out that process in more detail.
Evidence that carries the most weight
Because there is no insurer investigating the vehicle on the injured person’s behalf, the evidence gathered by or for the injured person becomes central. A police report is the starting point in almost every case. Beyond that, photographs of the scene and any damage, contact details for witnesses, and any dashcam or nearby security footage can all help establish both how the accident happened and what steps were taken to identify the vehicle involved.
Medical evidence matters in the usual way. Treatment records created close to the date of the accident support both the account of how the injury occurred and its ongoing effect, which becomes important once the claim reaches an assessment stage.
What this means in practice
A Nominal Defendant claim follows the same broad shape as an ordinary compulsory third party claim in Queensland, with the Nominal Defendant standing in as the responding party. The injured person still needs to establish how the accident happened and, in an unidentified vehicle case, needs to show that proper inquiry and search was made. Time limits apply to notifying the claim and they differ from those for a claim against a known insurer. Our guide on time limits for personal injury claims sets out how these limits generally work.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Every situation is different.