You got hurt at work and you are still in pain. Your checks are smaller than your paycheck was, the treatment is not finished, and now there is a number on the table that you have no way to judge.
Two different numbers decide what you walk away with. The first is what Florida owes you by law once your doctor puts a percentage on your injury, and that one really can be read off a table. A Florida workers' comp settlement chart is what people are after when they go looking for it.
The second number is the settlement itself. That is the one the adjuster is offering, and it is negotiated rather than looked up.
This post gives you both. I am Mark Hirsch, I handle Florida workers' compensation claims, and the call I get most often starts with an offer somebody cannot measure.
So where does each number come from? How do you work out your own on paper? And who checks whether the offer in front of you is any good?
Here is the short answer. Florida has no chart that pays you for a body part. The state pays a set number of weeks based on the percentage your doctor writes down, and a settlement is separate money the insurance company pays to close your file.
- Your doctor writes a percentage. That percentage buys weeks: 2 weeks for each point up to 10 percent, 3 weeks per point from 11 to 15, 4 weeks per point from 16 to 20, and 6 weeks per point above that.
- Each of those weeks pays about half your old average weekly wage. For a 2026 injury the most any of those weeks can pay is $1,018.50.
- So a 10 percent rating is 20 weeks, which is $20,370 for a worker at the top of the scale and a good deal less for everybody else.
- A settlement is usually much larger than that, because it buys out your future medical care. No chart can show you that part.
How I know: the weeks and the percentages are in Florida Statute 440.15, the settlement rules are in Florida Statute 440.20, and the 2026 ceiling comes from the Division of Workers' Compensation bulletin issued December 2, 2025.
By the end you will know what the real Florida chart looks like, how to work out your own number on paper, why your settlement sits above it, what gets taken out before you see it, and the five questions to ask before you sign.
Key Takeaways
- Your average weekly wage is one thirteenth of everything you earned in the 13 weeks before the accident.
- Once you have a lawyer, a judge reads only the attorney's fee, not your number.
- A big settlement can owe Medicare a set-aside and past-due child support before it reaches your bank.
- You have 2 years from the day you knew the injury came from work to file a petition.
- Signing closes the file for good. A knee that gets worse next year is your own bill.
Is there a Florida workers' comp settlement chart?
Not the kind you are looking for. Florida had a schedule that priced body parts, and the Legislature took it out in 1994. Nothing in Florida Statute 440.15 today puts a dollar figure next to a hand or an eye.
What replaced it is one percentage. After your treating doctor decides more treatment will not help much, that doctor assigns an impairment rating off a single state schedule. I wrote about that day in detail in what happens after you reach maximum medical improvement.
That percentage is the only part of your case that reads like a chart. Everything else is argued.
The real Florida workers' comp payout chart for 2026
Here is the table those searches are reaching for. The weeks come straight from section 440.15(3)(g). The dollars assume you earned enough to sit at the very top of the scale, so treat the right column as a ceiling rather than a prediction.
| Impairment rating | Weeks you are owed | Most it can pay |
|---|---|---|
| 1 percent | 2 weeks | $2,037 |
| 5 percent | 10 weeks | $10,185 |
| 10 percent | 20 weeks | $20,370 |
| 15 percent | 35 weeks | $35,647.50 |
| 20 percent | 55 weeks | $56,017.50 |
| 25 percent | 85 weeks | $86,572.50 |
The weeks stack as the percentage climbs, which is why 25 percent buys 85 weeks instead of 50. The first 10 points buy 2 weeks each, the next 5 points buy 3 weeks each, the next 5 buy 4 weeks each, and everything above 20 percent buys 6 weeks each.
How to work out your own number on paper
Start with your average weekly wage. Under Florida Statute 440.14, that is every dollar you earned in the 13 calendar weeks before the accident, divided by 13. The week of the accident itself does not count.
Now take half of it. Your temporary check was two thirds of your average weekly wage, and your impairment check is 75 percent of that temporary check, so the two fractions multiply out to almost exactly one half.
People often ask how much does workers' comp pay for lost wages while all this is going on. Two thirds of your average weekly wage for up to 104 weeks while you are out entirely.
If you go back part time, it pays 80 percent of the difference between 80 percent of your old wage and what you are able to earn now.
That last figure is the state's money. It arrives whether or not anybody ever offers you a settlement, and at a 10 percent rating it runs for 20 weeks.
One more rule worth knowing. If you go back to work and earn as much as you did before, each of those weeks drops by half.
Why your settlement sits above the chart
The weeks above are backward looking. They pay for what your body permanently lost. A settlement is forward looking, and it is mostly about one question: what will your medical care cost for the rest of your life?
Section 440.20(11) lets the insurance company hand you a lump sum and walk away from future medical bills, future checks, and anything else the chapter would have owed you. That is the trade.
A knee that needs a replacement in eleven years is worth real money to close out. One worker with a 10 percent rating may be offered $15,000, and the next worker with the same 10 percent rating may be offered $95,000, on that difference alone.
This is why workers' comp settlement amounts in Florida are negotiated and never published. No work injury settlement calculator can price the care you have not needed yet, including ours.
So when an adjuster says your case is worth $18,000, the honest question back is not whether that matches a chart. It is what the company thinks it just bought.
Nobody checks whether your number is fair
This is the part that surprises people, and it is written plainly in the statute. The rules split in two depending on whether you have a lawyer.
If you have no lawyer, a judge of compensation claims reviews the settlement, has to find a real dispute about your claim, and can refuse it.
If you do have a lawyer, section 440.20(11)(c) says the judge approves the attorney's fee and nothing else. The statute goes further: the parties need not submit any information at all about the settlement itself, except what explains the fee.
Read that twice before you sign anything. The judge is not looking at your number. Your lawyer is the only person in the room whose job is the size of it, which is why it matters who that is.
What comes out of the lump sum before you see it
A workers' comp lump sum settlement is one payment that ends the claim, and the figure you agree to is not the figure that reaches your bank.
If you are on Medicare, or close enough to it, part of your settlement may have to be set aside for the medical care Medicare would otherwise pay for.
Medicare will not even look at settlements under $25,000 for people already on Medicare, or under $250,000 for people expected to qualify within 30 months. Both lines are in the CMS set-aside reference guide. Above them, plan on a carve-out.
Past-due child support comes out too. Section 440.20(11)(d) tells the judge to look at arrearages when the settlement is allocated.
Your attorney's fee comes out as well. In a fought claim the insurance company can be ordered to pay your lawyer. On a settlement of this kind, section 440.20(11)(c) takes that away, so the fee comes out of your own money.
5 questions to ask before you sign
- What does my future medical care cost? Ask for the number the company used. If nobody can say it out loud, nobody priced the biggest piece of your case.
- Am I at maximum medical improvement, and is the rating right? A rating written early is a cheap rating. The same doctor who wrote it can be asked again, and a second opinion is available to you.
- What have I already been paid, and what is still owed? Unpaid weeks and unpaid bills are not part of the trade. I see them quietly folded in. If the insurance company is behind on bills already, read what the law says about those deadlines.
- Will this cut my Social Security check? It can. Ask how the settlement is written up before you agree, not after.
- What happens to my doctor on Monday? Once this is signed, the authorized doctor, the referrals, and the surgery you were waiting on are yours to pay for.
The deadline that ends the conversation
Florida Statute 440.19 gives you 2 years from the day you knew, or should have known, that the injury came from your job. Miss it and there is nothing left to settle.
There is a second clock worth watching. Every time the insurance company pays you a benefit or authorizes treatment, your deadline is pushed out 1 year from that payment. So a claim that has been quiet for 18 months is closer to the edge than it feels.
Hurt on a dock, a ship, or overseas? Different chart entirely
If you were injured loading vessels, working a shipyard, or on contract outside the country, Florida's percentages do not apply to you. Federal law does instead, and it pays better. That work is handled on our Longshore Act page, and you can run your own figures through the longshore settlement calculator.
Frequently Asked Questions
How soon do I get paid after I agree to a settlement?
Within 14 days after the judge of compensation claims mails the order approving your attorney's fee. That deadline is in section 440.20(11)(c), and it is the carrier's deadline, not your lawyer's.
Will a settlement reduce my Social Security disability check?
It can. Under 42 U.S.C. 424a, your disability benefits and your workers' compensation money together cannot exceed 80 percent of what you used to earn, and Social Security reduces its payment to stay under that line. How the settlement papers spread the money over your lifetime changes the result, so that language gets written carefully.
Do I pay tax on a Florida workers' comp settlement?
Workers' compensation is not taxed as income. The rules get more complicated once other money is mixed in, which I walk through in what the IRS taxes in a settlement.
Can I reopen my case if my back gets worse next year?
No. A settlement under section 440.20(11) is approved on a joint petition and is not open to later review under section 440.28. That is what the insurance company is paying for.
Can I settle the money and keep my medical care open?
The lump sum described in the statute releases future medical care along with everything else. Anything narrower than that is a deal the insurance company has to agree to, and most do not offer it unless somebody asks.
Got an Offer and No Way to Measure It?
If an adjuster has put a number in front of you on a Florida work injury, the useful thing is a second set of eyes on what that number is buying. Call our Fort Lauderdale office and we will read the offer with you.