Compensation Benefits

Florida workers’ compensation benefits replace part of your lost wages and pay for your authorized medical care after a workplace injury—but the dollar amount you receive each week is governed by a specific formula in Chapter 440 of the Florida Statutes, not by what your employer or the insurance carrier thinks is fair. Understanding how that formula works is the difference between accepting an underpaid check and getting paid what the statute actually requires. Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada has handled Florida workers’ compensation benefit disputes for injured workers across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Collier Counties since 1976, and we built this page to walk you through each benefit type, the statute behind it, and the common ways carriers underpay.

• Indemnity benefits in Florida are calculated at 66 2/3% of your average weekly wage (AWW) under Florida Statute § 440.15.
• Your AWW is based on your earnings during the 13 weeks before the injury under Florida Statute § 440.14.
• The maximum weekly compensation rate for injuries occurring on or after January 1, 2026 is $1,358, set under Florida Statute § 440.12(2).
• Temporary total disability (TTD) benefits are capped at 104 weeks under Florida Statute § 440.15(2)(a), but the Florida Supreme Court held that cap unconstitutional in Westphal v. City of St. Petersburg, 194 So. 3d 311 (Fla. 2016) and revived the prior 260-week limit—so TTD can run up to 260 weeks in practice.
• Impairment income benefits (IIB) are paid biweekly at 75% of your TTD rate under Florida Statute § 440.15(3)(c), reduced by 50% for any week you earn equal to or more than your pre-injury AWW.
• The number of weeks of impairment income benefits is tied to your impairment rating: 2 weeks per percentage point for ratings 1-10%, 3 weeks for 11-15%, 4 weeks for 16-20%, and 6 weeks for ratings of 21% or higher.
• Permanent total disability (PTD) benefits continue until age 75 in most cases under Florida Statute § 440.15(1).
• Death benefits are capped at $150,000 plus funeral expenses up to $7,500 under Florida Statute § 440.16.

Your average weekly wage, or AWW, is the figure used to calculate every indemnity benefit you receive—and getting it right is one of the most contested issues in Florida workers’ compensation cases. Florida Statute § 440.14 generally calculates AWW based on what you actually earned during the 13 weeks before your injury, divided by 13. That sounds simple, but the statute has several variations: if you worked fewer than 13 weeks before the injury, the AWW is based on a similar employee’s earnings; if you held a concurrent second job at the time of injury, those wages get included; if you received fringe benefits like employer-paid health insurance that ended after the injury, the value of those benefits gets added in; and if you worked a “fluctuating” schedule, special rules apply.

Insurance carriers routinely calculate AWW low. Common shortcuts include leaving out overtime, ignoring concurrent employment, excluding the value of lost fringe benefits, and using the wrong 13-week period. Every one of those mistakes reduces your weekly check for the entire life of the claim—and over a year of TTD payments, the difference can run into the thousands.

If you suspect your AWW was calculated incorrectly, the experienced workers’ compensation attorneys at Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada can review your wage statements and the carrier’s calculation at no cost.

You qualify for temporary total disability benefits when your authorized treating physician takes you out of work entirely because of a work injury, and TTD pays 66 2/3% of your AWW up to the statewide maximum compensation rate. For injuries on or after January 1, 2026, that maximum is $1,358 per week. TTD has a statutory cap, but it is not what the statute on its face appears to say. Florida Statute § 440.15(2)(a) sets a 104-week cap, but in Westphal v. City of St. Petersburg, 194 So. 3d 311 (Fla. 2016), the Florida Supreme Court held that cap unconstitutional as a denial of access to courts and revived the pre-1994 260-week limit. For practical purposes, TTD can run up to 260 weeks (about 5 years) before MMI—not 104.

There is also a higher benefit rate available for catastrophic injuries. Under § 440.15(2)(b), workers who lose an arm, leg, hand, or foot, who are rendered paraplegic, paraparetic, quadriplegic, or quadriparetic, or who lose the sight of both eyes are entitled to TTD at 80% of AWW (rather than 66 2/3%) for up to 6 months after the accident. (Severe brain injuries and severe burns trigger different presumptions on the permanent total disability side, discussed below.) This higher rate is something carriers sometimes fail to apply automatically.

If you have been on TTD for close to two years and the carrier is signaling a cutoff, your benefits are about to change—either you are approaching the statutory cap (now 260 weeks under Westphal), or you are approaching MMI, and the carrier will move you to a different benefit category. Understanding what comes next is critical because the wrong move at this stage can leave significant money on the table. Call (877) 448-8585 to talk with one of our dedicated attorneys about your TTD benefits and the transition to permanent benefits. The consultation is free, and you pay nothing unless we recover compensation for you.

Temporary partial disability benefits apply when your authorized doctor releases you to light-duty work but you cannot earn 80% or more of your pre-injury wages, and TPD makes up part of the difference. Under Florida Statute § 440.15(4), TPD pays 80% of the difference between 80% of your AWW and what you actually earn (or are deemed able to earn) during the disability period. The math is awkward, but the practical effect is straightforward: if you can only work part-time or in a lower-paying modified-duty position, TPD partially fills the gap.

TPD also has a 104-week cap under § 440.15(4)(b), and TPD weeks are counted together with TTD weeks against that combined limit. Note that the same Westphal reasoning that extended TTD to 260 weeks also applies to the combined temporary disability cap—the 1st DCA and JCCs have generally extended Westphal to TPD as well. The key disputes in TPD cases are usually about whether the carrier is correctly counting your earnings, whether the modified-duty job offered actually exists and is physically appropriate, and whether the carrier is improperly imputing earnings you aren’t actually receiving.

Impairment income benefits begin once you reach maximum medical improvement and your authorized doctor assigns a permanent impairment rating, and the weekly rate is 75% of your TTD rate under Florida Statute § 440.15(3)(c). For example, if your TTD rate was $600 per week, your IIB rate starts at $450 per week. There is one important reduction: if you return to work and earn equal to or more than your pre-injury AWW during a given week, the IIB rate for that week is cut in half—to 37.5% of the TTD rate.

The number of weeks of IIB you receive is set by a tiered schedule in § 440.15(3)(g), based on your impairment rating:

• 1% to 10% impairment: 2 weeks of IIB per percentage point
• 11% to 15% impairment: 3 weeks per percentage point
• 16% to 20% impairment: 4 weeks per percentage point
• 21% and higher: 6 weeks per percentage point

So a 10% impairment rating yields 20 weeks of IIB. A 15% rating yields 35 weeks (20 + 15). A 25% rating yields 85 weeks (20 + 15 + 20 + 30). The impairment rating itself comes from the authorized treating physician using the Florida Uniform Permanent Impairment Rating Schedule, and disagreements over the rating are one of the most common reasons workers’ comp cases go to a hearing before a Judge of Compensation Claims.

Permanent total disability benefits are reserved for the most severely injured workers—those who cannot perform even sedentary employment within a 50-mile radius of the injury site—and PTD pays 66 2/3% of AWW for life (or until age 75 in most cases). Florida Statute § 440.15(1) defines who qualifies. Certain catastrophic injuries are presumed to qualify automatically: spinal cord injury involving severe paralysis, severe brain injury, amputation of an arm, hand, foot, or leg involving the effective loss of use of the limb, second- or third-degree burns over 25% or more of the body, and total industrial blindness. Other workers can qualify by proving inability to perform sedentary work using vocational evidence—typically through a job search and a vocational expert.

Florida Statute § 440.15(1)(f) sets PTD supplemental benefits at 3% of the weekly compensation rate per calendar year since the date of injury, and the supplement stops when the worker reaches age 62—this is distinct from the underlying PTD benefit, which generally continues to age 75.

When a worker dies as a result of a workplace injury, Florida workers’ compensation pays death benefits to the surviving spouse and dependent children, capped at $150,000 plus up to $7,500 in funeral expenses. Florida Statute § 440.16 sets the structure: a surviving spouse with no children receives 50% of AWW; a spouse with one or more children receives 66 2/3% of AWW collectively; an orphaned child receives 33 1/3% of AWW; and other dependents (parents, siblings) can receive smaller percentages if no spouse or child survives. Under Florida Statute § 440.16(1)(b)(2), a surviving spouse who remarries receives a lump-sum payment equal to 26 weeks of compensation at 50% of the average weekly wage, subject to the overall $150,000 cap. After the lump sum, the children’s benefits continue under the standard schedule.

The surviving spouse is also entitled to up to $7,500 in postsecondary educational benefits at a Florida public institution under § 440.16(1)(b). If your loved one died on the job, the death-benefit calculation often interacts with a separate wrongful death claim—the firm’s Miami wrongful death attorneys can review whether both claims apply.

Almost every Florida workers’ compensation case turns on numbers—and almost every dispute about those numbers comes back to AWW, the temporary disability cap, the impairment rating, or the transition from temporary to permanent benefits. Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada has handled benefit calculation disputes throughout South Florida since 1976, including AWW recalculations, IIB and TPD math corrections, PTD eligibility hearings, and lump-sum settlement negotiations under Florida Statute § 440.20(11). Many of our cases also involve a separate third-party personal injury claim when someone other than your employer caused the injury—recovering on both the workers’ comp side and the personal injury side often produces a substantially larger total result than workers’ comp alone.

To talk with one of our Miami workers’ compensation attorneys about your benefits, call Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada at (305) 448-8585 or contact us online. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The consultation is free, and you pay nothing unless we recover compensation for you.