Estimate Your Impairment Rating Payout and Wage-Loss Benefits

The calculator above can read your documents so you are not retyping figures from a stack of paper. Upload your pay stubs or wage statements and it lists every wage amount it finds; a one-click button copies the figure into the average weekly wage field, and if a stub covers a biweekly or monthly period, divide it by the weeks it covers before you rely on it. The AWW drives every benefit in the claim, so verifying it against your own pay records is the single highest-value check you can run.

Upload your medical bills and the tool totals the documented treatment as context. Those bills do not add into the wage-benefit math, because workers comp pays medical care directly rather than through your weekly checks, but a documented treatment history is exactly what supports your impairment rating and your future medical position when settlement talks start. Nothing is changed automatically: every extracted number sits in a review list until you confirm it, and your files are read once and never stored.

A workers compensation case is valued from three buckets. First, wage-loss benefits: the weekly checks that replace part of your income while your doctor keeps you out of work, standardly two-thirds of your average weekly wage, subject to a state maximum. Second, the permanency award: once your condition stabilizes, a permanent partial disability payout calculated from your impairment rating, your state's body-part week schedule, and your weekly compensation rate. Third, medical care: the treatment the insurer has paid and, critically in settlement, the value of the future treatment you are likely to need.

Notice what is missing: pain and suffering. Workers comp is a no-fault wage-and-medical system, so pain and suffering is generally not recoverable, no matter how badly the injury hurts. The trade is that you do not have to prove anyone was negligent. If a third party other than your employer caused the injury, a negligent driver, a subcontractor on your site, or a defective machine, you may have a separate personal injury claim where pain and suffering is on the table. Estimate that claim with our personal injury settlement calculator, and keep in mind the comp insurer usually holds a lien on part of any third-party recovery.

The calculator above asks which state you were injured in first, because that answer changes not just the numbers but the method. It then computes your weekly TTD check, totals your wage loss, applies your state's own permanent partial disability rule, and frames a combined settlement value. Where we have not read a state's statute, it says so and computes nothing from state law rather than substituting a national average. When you are ready to present a number, a written, professionally drafted settlement demand that shows the math is what adjusters respond to.

An impairment rating payout calculator runs the permanent partial disability math that most state systems share. After you reach maximum medical improvement, a physician examines you and assigns an impairment rating, a percentage expressing how much function you permanently lost, usually under the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment. That percentage is then applied to the number of weeks of compensation your state statute assigns to the injured body part. A 10% rating on a part valued at 200 weeks entitles you to 20 weeks of PPD checks; a 50% rating on the same part entitles you to 100 weeks.

The last input is the weekly PPD rate, commonly two-thirds of your average weekly wage, capped by the state, and in some states subject to a separate, often lower, PPD maximum than the TTD maximum. Multiply the weeks owed by the weekly rate and you have the scheduled payout. Two claims with identical ratings can therefore produce very different dollars: the wage, the state week count, and the applicable cap all move the number. This is also why insurers fight the rating itself so hard. A few rating points on a high-week body part are worth thousands of dollars, and most states give you the right to a second opinion or an independent medical examination if you believe the rating is low.

Temporary total disability benefits, or TTD, are the weekly wage-replacement checks you receive while your doctor certifies you cannot work at all. The standard formula is two-thirds (66.67%) of your average weekly wage, subject to a state maximum weekly benefit that varies by state and is usually adjusted each year. Your average weekly wage is typically computed from your gross earnings over the weeks before the injury, often 26 or 52 weeks, and where your state allows it should include overtime, bonuses, and concurrent employment. TTD checks are generally not taxed.

Two numbers deserve scrutiny on every benefit notice. First, the AWW itself: insurers sometimes compute it from base pay only, include weeks of unpaid leave in the divisor, or ignore a second job, and every one of those errors shrinks both your TTD checks and your eventual PPD payout. Second, the cap: if your wage is high, the state maximum may bind, which is why the calculator lets you enter your state's cap and warns you when the uncapped figure may overstate. If your doctor releases you to light duty at lower pay, most states switch you to temporary partial disability, which pays a fraction of the wage difference rather than the full TTD rate. Track your weeks and pay with records; our free invoice generator helps self-employed and gig workers document earnings.

Every state system pays from the same menu of benefit categories, and knowing which ones your claim touches tells you what belongs in the settlement. Temporary total disability (TTD) is the weekly check while you cannot work at all. Temporary partial disability (TPD) applies when you are back on light duty at lower pay: it typically pays two-thirds of the difference between your old and new wages. Permanent partial disability (PPD) is the impairment award this calculator models. Permanent total disability (PTD) applies when the injury keeps you from any suitable gainful work; it pays weekly checks that in many states run for life, and certain catastrophic losses, such as both hands or both eyes, are presumed total. Medical benefits cover all reasonable and necessary injury treatment with no deductible or copay, and death benefits pay a burial allowance plus weekly support to a surviving spouse and dependent children. Many states add vocational rehabilitation: retraining, job placement help, and sometimes tuition when restrictions end your old trade.

Two structural details shape every one of those checks. First, the weekly caps: most states peg the maximum weekly benefit to the state average weekly wage, often at 100% or more of it, recalculated every year, and most also set a minimum weekly benefit so low earners are not left with token checks. Second, the schedules run finer than this calculator's selector: many statutes assign separate week counts to the thumb, each individual finger, and each toe, which is why a hand claim is sometimes argued as fingers versus the whole hand. Two enforcement points are worth knowing as well. Most statutes add a late-payment penalty, a percentage surcharge the insurer owes on top of benefits paid late. And if the claim is denied, that is the start of a process, not the end: report the injury to your employer promptly (many states allow 30 days or less), file your claim within the statutory deadline, and appeal a denial to a workers compensation judge, then the appeals board, and ultimately the state courts.

Maximum medical improvement (MMI) is the medical finding that your condition has plateaued: further treatment may maintain you, but it is not expected to make you meaningfully better. MMI is the hinge of a workers comp claim. Before it, you are in the temporary phase, collecting TTD and treating. At MMI, the physician assigns your impairment rating, usually under the AMA Guides, and the claim shifts to permanency: what you are owed for the function you will not get back, and what your future medical care is worth.

MMI is also when leverage changes. Insurers often push for a quick settlement right at MMI, before future medical needs are fully projected, and sometimes they schedule their own examination to obtain a lower rating. You do not have to accept the first rating or the first number. Get the rating report, understand which edition of the Guides your state uses, and compare the insurer's rating to your treating doctor's. If work restrictions keep you from returning to your old job, some states add or substitute wage-differential or vocational benefits, which belong in the settlement value too. All of that is exactly the documentation a written settlement position should lay out. For a deeper walkthrough of MMI and impairment ratings, including how to challenge a rating you disagree with, see our dedicated guide.

A workers comp back injury settlement works differently from a hand or foot claim because the back is not on most states' schedules. Scheduled injuries, an arm, a hand, a leg, a foot, an eye, hearing, have fixed statutory week values. Unscheduled injuries, the back, the neck, the head, internal organs, and psychological conditions, are instead valued against a whole person or body as a whole week count. Georgia, for example, uses 300 weeks for body as a whole, Illinois and South Carolina 500, and Missouri caps unscheduled injuries at 400. Others, New York, North Carolina and Virginia among them, have no whole-body figure in the schedule at all and compensate these injuries on lost earning capacity instead. The calculator says which of those applies to your state rather than averaging them.

Back cases also settle less mechanically than the formula suggests. Ratings for spinal injuries are medically contested, future care (injections, fusion surgery, pain management) is expensive and hard to project, and permanent lifting or standing restrictions can end a career in physical work, which brings wage-differential and vocational issues into the number. In practice, a back settlement prices the whole package: the permanency math, the projected medical spend, and the risk each side carries if the case goes to a hearing. That makes documentation decisive. A demand that attaches the rating report, the restriction notes, and a future-care projection consistently outperforms a bare verbal number. When you are ready, a professionally drafted demand letter puts that package in writing.

A lump sum settlement converts your remaining entitlements, future weekly checks and often future medical care, into a single payment, and in most states it closes the claim for good. Ongoing benefits keep the weekly checks and open medical coverage flowing but leave you inside the system: adjuster approvals, utilization review, and independent medical examinations for as long as the claim stays open. Neither is automatically better. A lump sum buys certainty and control, and insurers pay for the closure. Ongoing benefits protect you if your condition deteriorates, because a settled claim generally cannot be reopened.

Three things deserve special attention before you take a lump sum. First, whether the settlement closes future medical: that is usually the most valuable and most underpriced part of the deal. Second, Medicare set-asides: if you are on Medicare or expect to be soon, federal rules may require part of the settlement to be reserved for future injury-related treatment, which reduces the cash you actually pocket. Third, approval: many states require a workers compensation judge or board to review and approve any settlement before it is final, a safeguard that exists precisely because injured workers were historically pressured into cheap closures. An approval hearing goes better when the settlement is supported by a documented position showing the math, which is also the document that got the number up in the first place.

Settlements are not all the same document. A full and final release, the Section 32 waiver agreement in New York and its equivalents elsewhere, closes both the wage-benefit side and future medical care forever. Other states allow, or in some cases require, an indemnity-only settlement that leaves medical open: you take a lump sum for the wage and permanency side while the insurer stays on the hook for injury treatment. Payment structure is a separate choice: most deals pay a single lump sum, but larger cases sometimes use a structured settlement, an annuity that pays out over years, which can make sense when future medical costs are large and long-running. Which structure you are being offered changes what the headline number is actually worth, so read the release language before you compare dollars.

When a settlement closes future medical and Medicare is in the picture, the Medicare set-aside (WCMSA) rules apply, because Medicare is a secondary payer to workers comp. CMS voluntarily reviews proposed set-aside amounts at two thresholds: settlements over $25,000 for current Medicare beneficiaries, and settlements over $250,000 where enrollment is reasonably expected within 30 months. The set-aside can be self-administered from a dedicated account with annual reporting, or handed to a professional administrator. Getting this wrong has teeth: Medicare can decline to cover injury-related treatment until the set-aside funds are shown to have been spent correctly, so the set-aside is not paperwork to skip, it is the price of keeping Medicare available for your injury care.

Two more numbers frame the net result. Attorney fees in workers comp are capped by statute in most states, commonly 10% to 20% of the recovery and subject to judge or board approval, far below typical personal injury contingency rates. And the exclusive remedy doctrine explains the ceiling on the comp side: workers comp is your only claim against your employer, which is why pain and suffering never appears in the math above. The doctrine does not protect anyone else. If a negligent driver, a subcontractor, or a defective product caused the injury, a third-party lawsuit can recover full damages, with the comp insurer asserting a lien on part of that recovery; our guide to subrogation and reimbursement liens explains how that repayment works, and a third-party injury demand letter is how that separate claim gets presented.

You are not required to have one, and simple claims, a short recovery, no permanency, benefits paid on time, are routinely resolved without counsel. The calculus changes at settlement. The insurer values your claim with professionals every day; most injured workers do it once in a lifetime. Representation or, at minimum, professional documentation earns its keep when the impairment rating is disputed, when the injury is an unscheduled back or neck claim, when future medical is significant, when Medicare is in the picture, or when the insurer's offer arrived fast and feels light. Those are the situations where a few rating points or a future-care projection swing the value by five figures.

Whatever you decide about representation, do not negotiate a settlement by phone. Put your position in writing: your average weekly wage with proof, your rating and who assigned it, your state's schedule math, your restrictions, and your projected future medical needs, with the records attached. A written, documented demand changes the conversation because it shows the adjuster, and the judge or board that may have to approve the deal, that you know what the claim is worth. You can have your settlement demand professionally drafted for a flat fee, or see the demand letter options to get started.