22 July 2025, written submissions disputing the operation of s 6.26(3) or, alternatively, an application for reinstatement accompanied by a statement providing a full and satisfactory explanation for the failure. The insurer was directed to respond by 19 August 2025, and the claimant given liberty to reply by 9 September 2025. 11. On 22 July 2025 the claimant filed submissions together with a statement and medical material. She contended that she had acted reasonably in relying on her solicitors, that her catastrophic injuries left her little practical capacity to attend to procedural obligations personally, and that her statement disclosed a full and satisfactory explanation. 12. On 13 August 2025 the insurer filed submissions in reply. It annexed its correspondence trail from 2024 and 2025, emphasised that the s 6.26 direction had been validly issued, and submitted that no compliance occurred within the stipulated period. It argued that the claim was therefore deemed withdrawn and that solicitor default did not absolve the claimant. 13. On 9 September 2025 the claimant filed reply submissions. She relied on Smith v Grant [2006] NSWCA 244; 67 NSWLR 735 (Smith) and Isho v Insurance Australia [2022] NSWPIC 581 (Isho), submitting that solicitor fault should not be imputed to her, and that reliance on her solicitors was reasonable in the circumstances. She annexed further medical material, including a report of Dr Jayamanne dated 24 July 2025 diagnosing bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome, polyradiculopathy, complex regional pain syndrome, central sensitisation, and post-traumatic stress disorder, all contributing to her reliance on others for daily living and litigation conduct.

1. Section 6.26(6) provides that where an application for reinstatement is made within three years of the accident, the claim is to be reinstated if the Commission is satisfied that the claimant has provided a full and satisfactory explanation for the failure to provide the required particulars. The phrase "full and satisfactory explanation" is not novel. By force of s 6.2 it means, first, that the explanation must be full in the sense of providing a complete account of the claimant's conduct, knowledge and belief over the relevant period, including the acts and omissions of her legal representatives insofar as they bear on the delay; and, secondly, that it must be satisfactory in the sense that a reasonable person in the claimant's position would have been justified in experiencing the same failure.
2. The statutory test therefore requires both limbs to be met: completeness of the account and objective justification. Neither perfection nor prolixity is required (Walker v Howard [2009] NSWCA 408; 78 NSWLR 161 at [104]). But the explanation must traverse the whole period of delay and be sufficient to permit the evaluative judgment to be made.
3. The claimant's account of the delay is that she was at all times legally represented, that the insurer's requests for particulars and the formal s 6.26 direction of 5 December 2024 were served upon her solicitors, and that she relied on them to attend to compliance. She says that her injuries have left her in a state of profound physical and psychological disability, that she requires assistance for most activities of daily living, and that she had neither the capacity nor the knowledge to attend to the provision of particulars herself. She says she believed her solicitors were dealing with the matter. Her statement discloses that she signed documents when asked to, answered questions when put to her, and left the management of the litigation to her lawyers. She says she had no knowledge of the statutory consequences of non-compliance, and no reason to suspect that her lawyers would fail to comply.
4. The insurer responds that the explanation is neither full nor satisfactory. It points to the absence of detail about what instructions were given to the solicitors in response to the direction, what advice was received, and why the particulars were not prepared and served within time. It contends that solicitor failure cannot be sufficient to explain away statutory default, because otherwise s 6.26(3) would have no practical operation.
5. The question therefore is whether the claimant's explanation, taken at its highest, amounts to a complete and reasonable account. On the "full" limb, the explanation must be judged against the standard in Mancini v Thompson [2002] NSWCA 38 and Rahman v Al-Maharmeh [2021] NSWCA 31; 95 MVR 394 (Rahman): it must cover her conduct and, so far as within her knowledge, the conduct of her solicitors. It need not, however, explain why the solicitors failed to act: that knowledge lies with them, not with her. On the "satisfactory" limb, the test is objective but contextual: whether a reasonable person in her position, disabled as she was, legally represented as she was, and assured that her lawyers were attending to the matter, would have been justified in experiencing the same delay.