What happens if you miss the 6-month WorkCover Queensland deadline
An insurer can waive the deadline in limited circumstances, most of which require a specific medical finding or a specific reasonable cause. None of them are automatic.
Missing the 6-month deadline in s 131 does not automatically end a claim, but every path back into time is a discretion someone else exercises, not a right the claimant controls. Under s 131, subsection (4) requires an insurer to waive the deadline only where a medical assessment tribunal is satisfied that special circumstances of a medical nature exist. That is a formal medical finding, not a claimant's own account of why the delay happened.
The narrower, faster waiver
Under s 131, subsection (5) lets an insurer waive the deadline where it is satisfied a doctor, nurse practitioner or dentist assessed the injury as causing total or partial incapacity for work, and the claimant then lodged within 20 business days of that assessment. This is narrower than it sounds: it only helps where the medical assessment itself happened within the original 6 months, or close enough to it that the 20-business-day window still functions.
The general discretion, and why it is not something to plan around
Under s 131, subsection (6) allows an insurer to waive the deadline if satisfied the delay was due to mistake, the claimant's absence from Queensland, or another reasonable cause. This is the broadest of the three waivers, and also the most discretionary: it depends on the insurer's own view of what counts as reasonable in a specific case, and this site does not predict how an insurer or the Regulator will decide that question for any individual claim. If your 6-month window has already passed, getting advice quickly, rather than waiting to see whether a waiver will be granted, is the more reliable next step.