Incapacity payments no one told her about, plus $115,000 more in PI

The situation

Tash spent ten years in the RAAF as an Avionics Technician, the kind of trade that demands precision, repetition, and a lot of time working in awkward positions with your hands. She was medically discharged at 30 and came home to the Hunter Valley as a single mum with a four-year-old daughter and a mortgage that didn't care what DVA was doing.

She had bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands, thoracic spondylosis, and an anxiety disorder. All three conditions had been accepted by a previous advocate who had lodged her initial liability claims and secured a modest PI lump sum of around $40,000 for 15 impairment points.

On paper she had support. In reality she was working ten hours a week in a light admin role, topping it up with Centrelink, and quietly falling behind. She couldn't do her trade anymore. She couldn't take on more hours without aggravating her back. Childcare costs ate into whatever was left.

She found us through a recommendation in a private veterans Facebook group. She almost didn't call because she assumed her claim was already done.

The challenge

It wasn't done. It was barely started.

The previous advocate had done what many do: accepted liability, lodged the PI claim, collected the lump sum, and moved on. Nobody had mentioned incapacity payments.

Incapacity payments are designed to replace lost income when a veteran can't work in their normal capacity due to accepted service conditions. They're calculated on the veteran's ADF salary, not on what they're currently earning in civilian life. For Tash, that meant her entitlement was based on a Corporal's salary of roughly $75,000 a year, not on the $18,000 a year she was scraping together in part-time admin work.

The gap between those two numbers is where the system had been failing her for eighteen months.

Her conditions had also worsened since the original assessment. The 15 impairment points she'd received no longer reflected where things actually stood. A reassessment was both warranted and overdue. She didn't know either of those things were possible. Nobody had told her.

What we did

We identified the incapacity payment entitlement in our first consultation and moved on it immediately.

We gathered medical certificates from Tash's treating practitioners documenting her partial incapacity, confirming she could not return to her trade and was limited in the hours and type of work she could perform. We documented her pre-discharge ADF salary, her current reduced earning capacity, and prepared the incapacity payment claim under MRCA.

At the same time we reviewed her PI position. Her carpal tunnel had progressed, her thoracic spine had deteriorated, and her anxiety disorder had worsened in the context of financial stress and single parenting. We coordinated updated specialist assessments across all three conditions and lodged a formal reassessment request.

We also identified that Tash was eligible for DVA-funded vocational rehabilitation and referred her into that program as part of the same engagement. Incapacity payments were approved within weeks of lodgement. The reassessment ran concurrently.

The outcome

Within weeks of our first call, Tash went from $600 a week to over $1,600 a week. Her daughter's childcare was no longer a source of daily anxiety. She stopped supplementing with Centrelink. She started retraining.

• Incapacity payments approved: $1,275/week gross (first 45 weeks)
• $868/week after 45-week stepdown
• PI reassessment: 15 → 35 impairment points
• $115,000 additional PI lump sum tax-free
• DVA rehabilitation: enrolled in vocational retraining
• White Card expanded to cover thoracic spondylosis
• Total income lifted from $600/week to $1,600+/week