Making a personal injury claim? Check what your super holds

A personal injury claim and the insurance inside your superannuation (super) are separate things. One can exist without the other. They can also run side by side.

Most people with a personal injury claim have never checked what their super holds. That is not an oversight on their part. Nobody tells you the cover might be there. This page explains the difference, and how to find out what you hold.

Two different things

A personal injury claim

A personal injury claim asks someone else to pay compensation for an injury, physical or psychological. It might follow a motor accident, a fall in a shop or public place (public liability), or medical treatment that went wrong (medical negligence). It is usually made against the person or business said to be responsible, through their insurer, or through a state scheme. The rules differ by state and by the kind of injury.

If your injury happened at work or on the road, claim pathways shows how those schemes connect to cover inside super.

The insurance inside your super

This is cover you may already hold, through your own fund. Moneysmart, the Australian Government's money guidance service, says most super funds, other than self-managed funds, offer three types of insurance: life cover, TPD insurance and income protection (IP) insurance (Moneysmart, Insurance through super).

• TPD insurance pays a lump sum if an illness or injury leaves you permanently unable to work. Moneysmart says each insurer has its own definition of what that means (Moneysmart, TPD insurance).
• Income protection pays you a regular income for a set time if you can't work due to illness or injury.

Moneysmart says the premiums for cover inside super are generally deducted from your super balance. So you may have been paying for cover without knowing it. Insurance inside super, explained goes further into each type.

Having one says nothing about the other

The two are decided by different people, under different rules.

• A claim against someone else usually turns on whether they are legally responsible for your injury.
• A claim on super cover is made through your fund and assessed by its insurer against the policy. For TPD, the question is whether you meet the policy's definition.

So the outcome of one does not decide the other. A personal injury claim that has settled, failed or is still going tells you nothing about what your super holds. And someone with no personal injury claim at all can still hold cover through super.

Can they run at the same time?

Yes. Nothing about a personal injury claim stops you finding out what your super holds.

How one affects the other depends on the policy. Two things are worth knowing:

• Income protection can be reduced by other payments. The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) says income protection benefits may be reduced if you receive income-like payments from other sources, such as workers' compensation, Centrelink or another insurer. It depends on the policy terms (AFCA, Income protection benefits in superannuation). Ask your fund how other payments are treated under yours.
• The timetables are separate. Under many group policies, a TPD claim is assessed once you have been unable to work for the policy's waiting period. That is often three consecutive months, six in some funds, and longer under some definitions. Your fund's insurance guide says which applies to you, and Moneysmart lists the waiting time as one of the questions worth asking the insurer.

If someone is already running your personal injury claim, you can ask them how a claim on your super cover would sit alongside it.

Most people have never checked

Most people were never told what their super holds. Moneysmart says most funds will automatically give you life cover and TPD insurance if you are aged 25 or over. Cover does not start automatically if you are a new member under 25, or your balance is under $6,000, unless you ask your fund for it or work in a dangerous job where the fund provides cover (Moneysmart, Insurance through super).

Cover can also end. Moneysmart says that by law, super funds cancel insurance on accounts with no contributions for at least 16 months, and that your fund will contact you before your cover ends. If you have been off work for a while, it is worth asking whether any cover has ended, and when.

These are rules about how funds generally work. They are not statements about your account. The only way to know what you hold is to check.

How to find out what your super holds

You can do all of this yourself, and it costs nothing. Moneysmart puts it plainly: "You don't need to pay anyone to help you find your super" (Moneysmart, Find lost super).

1. Find every account. Moneysmart says to sign in to myGov. If your myGov account is linked to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), you can see your super accounts and how much is in them. Old accounts from past jobs count too.
2. Ask each fund what cover sits on the account. Moneysmart says you can check by calling your fund, logging in to your account online, or looking at your annual statement and the product disclosure statement (PDS).
3. Check before you close or combine anything. Moneysmart says to check your insurance before changing super funds or closing an account, and to check whether you will lose insurance cover before combining accounts.
4. Keep what they send you. If a claim is ever made, the policy wording is what it is assessed against.

Questions worth asking each fund:

• Does this account have TPD cover? Does it have income protection?
• Is the cover still active? If it has ended, when did it end?
• Can you send me the policy document or the insurance guide?

"I'm not sure" is a fine answer to anything the fund asks you. Find out what cover you hold walks through these steps in more detail.

What this page cannot tell you

It cannot tell you whether you hold cover, or whether a claim would succeed. That depends on your fund, the policy wording and your medical situation. A specialist firm can work through the policy with you.

Where ClaimGuide fits

What we offer here is narrow. If you want to talk about the TPD or income protection cover inside your super, we can introduce you to a firm on our panel that handles claims on that cover. The introduction is about your super. Your personal injury claim is a separate matter, and it stays with whoever runs it.

How ClaimGuide is paid is set out on how we get paid.

ClaimGuide does not run claims or assess anyone's entitlements. We explain how the system works, in plain English, and connect people with specialist firms when that would help.

If you want to talk about the cover inside your super, get in touch.

Sources

• Moneysmart, Insurance through super, last updated 17 September 2026.
• Moneysmart, Total and permanent disability (TPD) insurance, last updated 26 October 2026.
• Moneysmart, Find lost super, last updated 29 September 2026.
• Australian Financial Complaints Authority, Income protection benefits in superannuation.
• Published TPD terms and insurance guides of large default super funds, on the TPD waiting period, reviewed November 2026.