If something feels
unclear or stuck

When an insurer denies liability, they are saying they do not accept that their policyholder was at fault for the accident — or that the fault was shared. This is not the end of the claim. It is a formal position that can be challenged.

Under the OIC portal process, a liability denial must come with reasons. The insurer cannot simply say no. Those reasons matter — they tell you what is being disputed and whether the evidence available supports a different conclusion.

Silence is the most common source of anxiety in the claims process — and in most cases, it is not a problem. After submission, the insurer has 30 working days to respond with a liability decision. During that window, receiving nothing is entirely normal. The clock is running; nothing visible happens on your side.

The situation is different if the 30 working day deadline has passed without a formal response, or if you are mid-negotiation and communication has stopped without explanation.

A low first offer is not unusual — it is the standard starting position. Settlement offers under the OIC process are calculated from a fixed government tariff applied to your injury type and prognosis period. The first offer reflects the minimum the tariff supports; it is not necessarily the full picture of what the claim is worth.

There are two reasons an offer may feel low. The first is that the medical report understated your symptoms or prognosis period — in which case the offer is correctly calculated from an inaccurate report. The second is that financial losses have not been included or have been undervalued — and these sit outside the tariff entirely.

This is one of the most difficult situations to be in — and one of the most common. Once a medical report has been approved by the claimant and submitted to the portal, it cannot be amended through the standard process. The figures it contains become the basis for the settlement offer.

If you approved a report that did not accurately reflect your symptoms or prognosis, the settlement offer you receive will reflect that inaccuracy. Understanding your options at this point requires clarity about exactly what went wrong and when.

OIC claims typically resolve within six to nine months from submission to settlement — though this varies significantly depending on the stage reached, the complexity of the medical evidence, and how quickly each party responds. Feeling like a claim is moving slowly is common. Whether that feeling reflects an actual problem depends on where in the process the delay is occurring.

If the delay falls outside these ranges — particularly if deadlines have been missed without explanation — the portal has formal mechanisms for recording non-compliance. These should be used through the portal itself rather than through informal chasing.

The OIC portal has a built-in escalation mechanism for situations where an insurer misses a deadline, fails to respond, or behaves unreasonably within the process. Using it is not aggressive — it is the process working as intended. It creates a formal record and triggers defined consequences under the portal's rules.

Beyond the portal itself, there are further routes available if the insurer's conduct falls short of what is required. These are formal processes with their own timescales and requirements.