FAQ

Anyone who is dissatisfied with a decision of an insurance institution may appeal it. The decision is accompanied by instructions for appeal explaining how to submit an appeal. There is also information about how to submit an appeal on our website under Appellants > Making an appeal. Please note that the appeal must be submitted to the insurance institution which issued the decision, so do not send it directly to the Accident Appeal Board.

The insurance institution will have the opportunity to amend its decision based on your appeal. In such a case, the insurance institution will issue a new decision and the matter will not be processed by the Accident Appeal Board at all.

The operations of insurance institutions are supervised by the Financial Supervisory Authority and the Parliamentary Ombudsman. The general supervision of the operations of insurance institutions is not the responsibility of the Accident Appeal Board.

The Accident Appeal Board must remain impartial, which is why it does not provide any general advice on accidents at work or occupational diseases. For advice on accident insurance matters, please contact the Finnish Financial Ombudsman Bureau (Fine). In legal matters, you can turn to your local legal aid office.

The insurance institution will process your appeal and either issue a new decision or inform you that your appeal has been referred to the Accident Appeal Board for processing. The insurance institution is obligated to submit the appeal to the Accident Appeal Board no later than 30 days from the end of the appeal period. The insurance institution may derogate from this time limit if it is necessary to obtain further clarification. However, the matter must be referred to the Accident Appeal Board no later than 60 days from the end of the appeal period. Once the insurance institution has referred your matter to the Accident Appeal Board, you will receive a letter from the Appeal Board informing you of the proceedings, including the record number of your matter before the Appeal Board.

Any new clarification affecting the matter should be sent to the insurance institution, as they must be given the opportunity to issue a statement regarding your further clarification. If you send your further clarification to the Accident Appeal Board, it will be referred to the insurance institution. The insurance institution will send its statement regarding the further clarification to you and the Accident Appeal Board. Submitting new information is possible as long as the matter is pending at the Accident Appeal Board. Please note, however, that the submission of each further clarification will slow down the processing, especially towards the end of the proceedings, as the further clarification must always be submitted to the insurance institution, which will be given two weeks to submit its statement, and you, as the appellant, will have two weeks to submit your opinion regarding the insurance institution’s statement.

The letter must always include your contact details, i.e. name, address and telephone number, as well as the Accident Appeal Board record number or your personal identity code. A name alone does not allow for linking the received clarification to the right matter. You can find the Accident Appeal Board record number in the letter you received when the matter was brought before the Appeal Board. If you are about to send any sensitive information such as a medical report by email, please use the encrypted email referred to under Contact information of the Accident Appeal Board. You can also find our other contact details under Contact information, as well as additional information under Further clarification and Electronic services.

During the preparatory phase, your documents will be reviewed to check, for example, that you have been served all the relevant documents. During this process, we may be unsure of whether you have received a particular document. In such a case, we will send the document to you for information. You will be reserved the opportunity to comment on the document, but it is not mandatory. This means that the Accident Appeal Board has at its disposal other documents (decisions and statements submitted by you or by the insurance institution) of which we believe you to be aware, not just the one on which your opinion is requested.

The Accident Appeal Board processes matters in writing. Our clerks cannot review your matter over the phone, and you must always submit all information and your opinions regarding your matter in writing. We cannot use information provided by phone when processing the matter; only written clarifications can be used. You may submit written clarifications by email or post, or by visiting the lobby service at the Accident Appeal Board office.

The Accident Appeal Board will not pay any invoices. The appellant must pay the invoices and then submit them as further clarification to the appeal if they are relevant to the matter at hand.

The average time for the Accident Appeal Board to process a matter is currently approximately nine months. The consideration of a specific matter may take more or less time. As a rule, matters are processed in the order in which they were received by the Accident Appeal Board. Complexity of the matter, a high volume of documentation or the submission of several further clarifications during the proceedings may prolong the duration of the consideration. The decision will be sent to you by post to the address you specified in the appeal document or at a later point in time. If you use OmaPosti, the decision will be sent to you in electronic format via OmaPosti.

The appellant must notify the Accident Appeal Board of any changes to their contact details, as we do not receive any information about changes of address or name from the Population Information System.

The insurance institution submits to the Accident Appeal Board the documents they had at their disposal when they made a decision regarding the matter. This means you do not have to resubmit the documents when you submit an appeal. The appeal document and its enclosures will also be referred from the insurance institution to the Appeal Board. Once the matter has been processed by the Accident Appeal Board, all documents will be returned to the insurance institution for archiving. For additional information about the publicity of documents and on submitting a request for information, please see the description of public access to documents.

The Accident Appeal Board will process your personal data to comply with its statutory duties. The staff have been instructed on how to securely process personal data, and the personal data is protected by technical means such as access rights. For more information about the processing of personal data, please refer to the privacy policy of the proceedings, which is available in Finnish in the Tietosuoja section.