In most Queensland injury claims the parties must meet and genuinely try to settle before anyone files in court. That meeting is the compulsory conference. It is not a hearing: no witness gives evidence and nobody across the table decides anything. It is a negotiation the legislation makes a precondition to litigation, and the rules that govern it change depending on how the injury happened.
Which Act governs your conference
Three statutes each create their own version. Motor accident claims run under the Motor Accident Insurance Act 1994 (Qld), MAIA below. Work injury damages claims run under the Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 (Qld). Almost everything else, including public liability and medical negligence, runs under the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 (Qld), PIPA below.
| PIPA | CTP | WorkCover damages | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conference | s 36 | s 51A | s 289 |
| Timing | The later of the days set by s 36(3), the first being 6 months after the complying part 1 notice | 6 months after notice to the insurer, or 1 month after any additional information form, whichever is later | Within 3 months after the insurer’s notice |
| Exchange before | 7 days (s 37) | 7 days (s 51B) | 5 business days (s 290A) |
| Offer if no settlement | Mandatory final offer, open 14 days (s 40) | Mandatory final offer, open 14 days (s 51C) | Written final offer, open 10 business days (s 292) |
| Costs principles | s 56 | s 55F | s 316 |
When it happens, and who can call it
Under PIPA s 36 there must be a conference of the parties before a proceeding is started in a court, and either side can call it: at a time and place agreed between them, or, once the relevant day has passed, at a reasonable time and place the calling party nominates. Section 36(3) sets that day as the later of the days it lists, not a single date. The first is 6 months after the claimant gave the respondent a complying part 1 notice of claim, or 6 months after the last respondent was given part 1 where there is more than one; where someone has notified the claimant that it is a proper respondent, a further 6 month period runs from that notice instead. MAIA s 51A works the same way on its own clock: 6 months after notice of the claim reached the insurer, or, where the insurer required additional information, one month after the completed form if that falls later.
Work injury claims are the outlier, because the conference has a deadline rather than an earliest date. Under the Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 (Qld) s 289 it must be held within 3 months after the insurer gives the claimant its written notice under s 281, unless the parties agree on a later date. All three schemes allow a conference to be dispensed with for good reason, by agreement or on application to the court, and in each case the court weighs how far the parties have complied with their own obligations.
What has to change hands before the day
The conference is built to happen only once both sides hold the same material. Under PIPA s 37 each party must, at least 7 days beforehand, give every other party any outstanding documents required under the Act, a signed statement verifying that all relevant documents in its possession have been given, details of its legal representation, and a signed certificate of readiness. MAIA s 51B imposes the same exchange on the same timetable, and s 290A sets it at 5 business days.
The certificate carries the weight. It must state that the party is in all respects ready for the conference, that investigative material for the trial has been obtained including statements from the lay witnesses it intends to call, that reports have been obtained from everyone it proposes to call as an expert witness, that disclosure obligations have been fully met, and that the lawyer has given the client a costs statement. That statement has to set out costs to the completion of the conference, an estimate of likely costs at trial, and the costs consequences of an award above, between and below the two final offers; the version required by s 290A estimates net damages as well. None of this is a formality. Under s 37(3) a practitioner who, without reasonable excuse, signs a certificate of readiness knowing it is false or misleading in a material particular commits professional misconduct. Our guide to how personal injury costs work in Queensland covers that ground across a whole claim.
What happens on the day
A mediator is optional. Under PIPA s 38 the conference may be held with an independent mediator if all parties agree, either one they choose or, where they cannot agree within 30 days after the day for the conference is fixed, one the registrar of the court nominates on application. The workers’ compensation scheme mirrors this in s 290, with 21 business days to agree. Because each provision requires agreement first, a mediator cannot be imposed on a party that does not want one.
Who has to be in the room is prescribed, and the standard is not mere attendance. PIPA s 38 requires each party to attend and actively participate in an attempt to settle the claim unless it has a reasonable excuse, and it allows a person authorised to settle on a party’s behalf to participate as a party. MAIA s 51B makes the claimant and a person authorised by the insurer to settle the conference participants and imposes the same duty on both. In a work injury claim s 289 requires the claimant in person, along with those authorised to settle for the insurer and for any contributor. The practical effect is that someone able to resolve the claim has to be present, not merely contactable.
If it does not settle: the final offers
This is the part of the day that catches people by surprise. If the claim does not settle, the parties do not simply go home. Under PIPA s 39 the claimant and respondent must exchange written final offers at the conference itself, or within 14 days where the conference was dispensed with. Those offers are mandatory final offers.
Three features of them matter. A respondent that denies liability altogether must still make one, expressed as a nil offer, under s 40. The offer must remain open for 14 days and a proceeding must not be started while it is open, so the conference is not the last chance to resolve the claim. And if a proceeding does start, each side files its offer at court in a sealed envelope that the court must not read until it has decided the claim. MAIA s 51C repeats that structure. The workers’ compensation scheme differs on the clock: under s 292 the open period is 10 business days rather than 14 calendar days.
How those offers affect costs later
The reason final offers are taken seriously is what happens to them after judgment. Under PIPA s 40 and MAIA s 51C the court must, where relevant, have regard to them in deciding costs, and the sealed envelope exists so it can do that without the offers touching the decision on damages.
Where the award is modest the principles are prescribed rather than discretionary. Under PIPA s 56 and MAIA s 55F, if the court awards an amount at or below the lower offer limit, an award landing between the two final offers produces no costs order at all, an award at or above the claimant’s own offer produces indemnity costs to the claimant from the day the proceeding started, and an award at or below the respondent’s or insurer’s offer produces standard-basis costs to that party from the same day. A separate set of principles applies between the lower and upper limits. Work injury claims use a cleaner rule with no thresholds: under s 316 costs run on the standard basis from the day of the offer to whichever side the award vindicates, and each party bears its own costs where the award lands between the two.
Two further points are worth keeping in view. The offer limits are not figures written into the Act, so a dollar amount quoted in an older article may no longer be right: under PIPA s 75A the Minister fixes the lower offer limit, the upper offer limit and the declared costs limit by notice before each financial year, adjusted by the change in average weekly earnings, and that notice is subordinate legislation. And under s 56 the court must not award a party costs for investigations or evidence gathering carried out after the conference unless the award was affected by factors that were not reasonably foreseeable when the offers were exchanged, which is why the certificate of readiness is not busywork.
Published 25 September 2026.
Where the conference sits in the claim
The compulsory conference is the point at which a claim stops being an exchange of correspondence and becomes a decision for the parties themselves. By the time it is held the material is in, the reports have landed, the certificate of readiness has been signed, and both sides have had to put a figure on paper that a court will eventually read. The legislation is built that way on purpose: the exchange, the participation duty and the costs rules all point to a case being fully worked up before the day rather than after it. That is also why the dates repay attention, and why a work injury claim in which a conference is held carries a 60 day filing deadline on the other side of it.
Related reading
- Understanding the personal injury claim process in Queensland
- A missing explanatory statement did not unmake the insurer’s mandatory final offer
- How Fraser Lawyers helps with personal injury claims
- Contact Fraser Lawyers
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This article is general information only and is not legal advice. Queensland law and the figures referred to can change, and every situation turns on its own facts. Contact Fraser Lawyers for advice specific to your circumstances.
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