My DH had a huge accident last year at work and is still having stuff to do with workcover. From what I understand, workcover may pay a lump sum, but only after a certain number of months (I think it's around 10???) and only if their assessor deems them to be more than 5% disabled at that time. I'm not sure of the amount of the pay out if it does come. As for suing, my DH looked into that for a while. He was told by a lawyer that it would only be worth suing if he was permanently more than 5% disabled, and then the majority of the pay out would go to workcover to pay them back for all the wages/medical costs, etc they have paid for him.