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Psychological Injury: The Fastest-Growing Workers Compensation Claim Type in Australia

Last updated: July 2026

Every figure on this page is drawn from a named public source and linked inline. National figures (Safe Work Australia) and NSW-specific figures (SIRA, icare) are clearly labelled throughout - they use different data collection methods and are not directly interchangeable. Where NSW-specific data of the kind Safe Work Australia publishes nationally is not itself publicly available, this is stated rather than estimated. See our companion page, the full public data reference, for ABS injury-survey context, the NSW legal framework, and SIRA's treatment fee schedule.

1. The national trend: mental health claims grew 161% in a decade

Safe Work Australia compiles workers compensation claims data from every state and territory scheme into the National Data Set for Compensation-based Statistics. Its most recent release, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025 (published October 2025, using 2023-24 preliminary data), found that mental health condition claims grew faster than any other category of workplace injury or disease over the past ten years.

• In 2023-24, there were 17,600 serious claims for mental health conditions across Australia - 12.0% of all 146,700 serious claims recorded that year.
• This is an increase of 2,300 claims (14.7%) in a single year, from 15,300 in 2022-23.
• Over the decade to 2023-24, mental health condition claims grew by 10,900 claims, or 161.1% - described by Safe Work Australia as "the largest change of any Nature of injury major group."
• Over the same decade, all serious claims combined grew by only 34.5% (up 37,600, from 109,100 to 146,700). Mental health claims grew at more than four and a half times that overall rate.

Source: Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025. "Serious claims" are accepted workers compensation claims involving one week or more of time off work. 2023-24 figures are preliminary ("p") and subject to revision. This is a national figure covering all Australian jurisdictions, not an NSW-only count.

Mental health claims take far longer to resolve and cost far more

Source: Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025. Time-lost and compensation figures use the most recent finalised reporting period (2022-23), as some 2023-24 claims remain open.

2. What's driving the growth: the most common causes

Safe Work Australia separately classifies claims by "mechanism of incident" - the event that caused the injury. Under this classification, "mental stress" accounted for 16,800 serious claims nationally in 2023-24 (11.5% of all serious claims), with a median time lost of 36.8 weeks and median compensation of $69,900. The three most common causes within this category were:

• Harassment and workplace bullying - 33.2% of mental stress claims
• Work pressure - 24.2% of mental stress claims
• Exposure to violence and harassment - 15.7% of mental stress claims

Safe Work Australia's data also shows a gender difference: mental health conditions account for a substantially higher share of women's work-related injury and illness claims (17.2%) than men's (8.2%), reflecting differences in the industries and occupations men and women are concentrated in.

Source: Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025. "Mental stress" (mechanism of incident) and "mental health conditions" (nature of injury/disease) are related but separately classified categories in Safe Work Australia's data; the two do not produce identical claim counts.

3. Is NSW following the same trend? What SIRA's own data shows

SIRA (the State Insurance Regulatory Authority) regulates the NSW workers compensation scheme, most of which is delivered by icare. SIRA does not publish an NSW-only version of Safe Work Australia's national mental-health-claims dataset - there is no single NSW page showing an equivalent "17,600 claims, up 161%" figure. But SIRA has published NSW-specific psychological injury data on two other occasions, and both point in the same direction as the national trend:

• In an October 2022 public statement, SIRA's then Chief Executive wrote: "today, around 11 per cent of all active NSW workers compensation claims relate to a psychological injury, compared with six per cent a decade ago." The same statement noted that people with a physical injury claim lose an average of 6 weeks of work, compared with 20 weeks for a psychological injury claim, and 31 weeks for workers who need psychological services following a physical injury. It also cited SIRA's own Customer Experience research finding that one in five people with a workers compensation claim had a probable mental illness, based on the Kessler 6 psychological distress scale.
• SIRA's live open-data System Overview dashboard (accessed July 2026) shows the NSW scheme currently covers around 5.0 million jobs and 351,000 employers, and supports around 128,000 workers with weekly benefits each year. Within its breakdown of claims by bodily location of injury, "Psychological" currently accounts for 10.3% of claims. This uses a different classification method to Safe Work Australia's national data, so the two percentages (10.3% in NSW's live dashboard vs. 12.0% nationally) are not a like-for-like comparison, but both describe psychological injury as a meaningful and growing share of the claims the scheme handles.

icare, which delivers most of the NSW scheme, made the same point directly in its own words. Announcing its 2023-24 Annual Report in November 2024, icare reported that it supported over 92,000 injured workers and paid over $5 billion in workers compensation claims benefits that financial year, and named "a continued rise in psychological claims" as one of the factors driving increased claims costs and affecting the scheme's long-term financial sustainability.

4. Why this matters if you're recovering from a work-related psychological injury

The data above isn't just an interesting trend - it describes a system that is, by its own regulator's account, dealing with a growing share of claims that take longer to resolve and involve higher stakes for the worker. A few practical implications follow:

• Recovery takes longer, on average. Nationally, mental health condition claims have a median time lost nearly five times the median across all serious claims. Early, consistent access to appropriate psychological treatment is one of the few levers that can influence this.
• NSW workers compensation funds treatment with no gap fee for approved claims. Whatever is happening at the scheme level, an individual worker's own access to psychology sessions is separate from these scheme-wide cost pressures - see our cost and fees guide for how billing actually works.
• Telehealth is funded on the same basis as in-person sessions. For a claim type where returning to a physical workplace or clinic in person may itself be difficult, this matters - see our SIRA-approved telehealth guide.
• From 1 July 2026, income-support rules changed for primary psychological injury claims (a 130-week cap on weekly payments, with treatment funding continuing separately) - see our 2026 reform guide for what this does and doesn't affect.

If you have an accepted or potential psychological injury claim in NSW and are looking for a SIRA-approved psychologist who offers telehealth sessions, browse listed practitioners by suburb and availability, or you can tell us what you need and we'll point you to a relevant match.

Sources

1. Safe Work Australia. Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025. Published October 2025. data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au
2. State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA) NSW. Open data: System overview. Accessed July 2026. sira.nsw.gov.au
3. State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA) NSW. Responding to increasing psychological injury claims in workers compensation. Adam Dent, SIRA Chief Executive. 18 October 2022. sira.nsw.gov.au
4. icare NSW. 2024 annual report - icare reports reform progress in year of continued change. 26 November 2024. icare.nsw.gov.au

Related guides

• NSW psychological injury claims: cost and return-to-work statistics - the NSW Treasurer's own March 2025 figures on claim cost, cost share, and return-to-work outcomes, kept separate from the national trend on this page.
• Work-related psychological injury in NSW and Australia: what the public data shows - the fuller reference version, covering ABS injury-survey context, the NSW legal framework, and SIRA's treatment fee schedule.
• NSW workers compensation reform 2026 - what changed on 1 July 2026 for primary psychological injury claims.
• icare psychology NSW - how icare funds psychological treatment and how billing works.
• Workers comp psychology cost NSW - SIRA's gazetted fees and what a worker actually pays.

About this page: This is a data reference resource produced by Workers Comp Psychologist Sydney, a directory of SIRA-approved telehealth psychologists for NSW workers compensation. It is not legal or clinical advice. If your situation is legally complex, consult a workers compensation solicitor. If you are in distress, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, or 13YARN on 13 92 76. This directory is not a crisis service.