Injured worker Greg Dayman cut off from benefits on Christmas Day

Greg Dayman is one of almost 400 workers who will get a Christmas “present” this year they will never forget.

The Sydney construction worker was badly injured on a building site in 2013, which left him unable to work with chronic pain in his neck, the side of his head, down his arm, torso and leg.

In 2017, he was among thousands of employees whose compensation payments to cover wages were cut as part of controversial reforms to the state’s scandal-ridden icare organisation. Changes to the legislation terminated injured workers receiving weekly wage benefits after five years unless they met a whole body impairment assessment of more than 20 per cent.

Greg Dayman will be cut off from medical benefits for his workplace injury on December 25.Credit: Wolter Peeters

However, he still received medical or health benefits. Now he has found out even these will be cut from December 25.

“It’s another upper cut,” he said. “And to do it on Christmas Day, that’s just cruel.”

Dayman is one of 395 workers facing a grim future as a crisis at icare deepens, with a document prepared by the State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA) revealing the workers’ compensation scheme “has deteriorated to the point the longer-term sustainability of the scheme is under threat”.

NSW Auditor-General Margaret Crawford will hold a performance audit into icare next year. It will examine how effectively key risks are managed, including the rising cost of workers’ compensation claims and its payment processes.

Dayman said he lost everything after his injury. “I lost my health, my career, and financially I’m in a position that if my specs break I can’t afford to buy them. The system dehumanises you, so you give up.”

‘The system dehumanises you, so you give up.’

Greg Dayman, injured worker turfed off compo scheme

He does now qualify for a disability pension but will have to rely on Medicare for future medical treatment.

“I have been suicidal at times because of the system and the way it treats you,” he said. “My time is spent trying to survive.”

In the executive summary of SIRA’s review into icare’s Nominal Insurer Improvement Plan, dated September 26, the authority said it had a “low level” of confidence icare’s strategy would improve return to work rates and overall performance.

In 2015-16, 93 per cent of injured workers were back at work 26 weeks after their injury, compared with 84 per cent in August 2022.

SIRA said it believed icare’s strategy “encompasses an increase in work capacity decisions to cease worker benefits instead of focusing on improving health and recovery through return to work”.

Richard Harding, icare’s managing director and CEO, said it was the insurer’s role to implement the law, and legislation “does not give icare any discretion to act outside that”.

Richard Harding, Matt Kean and the Treasury note about icare.Credit:

“Tailored and individualised support is provided to workers transitioning from the workers’ compensation scheme,” he said. “This may include support from NDIS, Community Support Services and Medicare in conjunction with their GP.”

This masthead this week revealed a third underpayment scandal of injured workers and concerns raised by NSW Treasury in August that a deterioration in icare’s finances would require insurance premiums to rise 33 per cent by 2025, or $1 billion a year, to cover the shortfall.

Against this backdrop, the icare board granted pay increases to 116 of its executives, including Harding, making him one of the state’s top-paid public servants, earning more than $1 million a year.

NSW Shadow Treasurer Daniel Mookhey.Credit: Michael Quelch

Shadow Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said icare’s finances were in a catastrophic condition.

“They’ve lost billions. They are planning massive premium hikes. And their next step is to expel even more injured workers from the system,” he said.

“It is a ruthless tactic stemming from their financial desperation.”

“Instead of punishing employers and injured workers, [the Premier] Dominic Perrottet needs to hold icare’s top executives accountable for the mess they made,” he said.

Sources inside the insurer, who asked to remain anonymous, said in early 2020 some executives at icare, who are no longer there, targeted more than 10,000 injured workers to cut them off, regardless of their circumstances. Icare profiled anyone whose claim was less than 2½ years old. Insurance agents were told of the plan, which icare has publicly denied.

Icare was set up by Premier Dominic Perrottet in 2015, when he was minister for finance, to replace the indebted WorkCover scheme.

The latest revelations come more than two years after a joint investigation by this masthead and ABC TV’s Four Corners uncovered mismanagement of the scheme including the underpayment of wages to thousands of injured workers. It is one of the biggest underpayment scandals involving a government agency.

The insurer has since announced it would repay $38 million to 53,000 underpaid injured workers.

The scandal triggered two separate inquiries, one by retired NSW Supreme Court judge Robert McDougall QC and the other by the NSW upper house law and justice committee, and changes to the board and senior executives, including the CEO.

In a statement, SIRA chief executive Adam Dent said its views on the Nominal Insurer Improvement Plan in September were made with limited detail on how the plan would be executed.

“Over recent weeks, SIRA has continued to engage with icare to address information gaps, including detailed briefings on managing IT and transition risks associated with the onboarding of new claims services providers.”

But SIRA said poor return to work performance continued to be an issue of concern.

“Icare’s targets for 2023 are lower than current return to work rates, and they are projecting a further decline of 2. 5 per cent on 26-week return to work rates through 2023 and 2024 as the scheme transitions to new claims providers,” Dent said.

Dent said the strategy had a specific focus on increasing the number of assessments of workers being ready to return to work.

“There has been a sharp increase in work capacity decisions since late 2020. Over the same period return to work has continued to decline,” he said.

Dent said from late 2022 to early 2023 SIRA anticipated that the number of workers affected by section 39 “will increase and, as a result, we would expect to see more planning with impacted workers”.

Icare said its focus was building injured workers’ capacity for employment using rehabilitation providers and associated vocational placement interventions. “This includes assistance with job seeking and vocational retraining. Work capacity decision-making is applied when the worker has a demonstrated capacity for work and has been provided the right support.”

Crisis support can be found at Lifeline: (13 11 14 and lifeline.org.au), the Suicide Call Back Service (1300 659 467 and suicidecallbackservice.org.au) and beyondblue (1300 22 4636 and beyondblue.org.au)

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