What is your injury claim worth?

Which calculator matches where your claim stands

The four tools above answer different questions, and most people only need one or two of them at any given stage of a claim. Start with where you actually are, not with the tool that sounds the most impressive.

If you are still off work right now, the lost wages calculator is the one that matters. It estimates your temporary total disability pay: the checks that replace part of your paycheck while you cannot do your job. You do not need an impairment rating for this one because none has been assigned yet. You just need your average weekly wage and a sense of how many weeks you expect to be out.

If a doctor has already told you your comp rate feels wrong, or you want to check the arithmetic before your first check arrives, use the weekly benefit calculator. It isolates the rate itself, before any weeks or lump sums are multiplied in, so you can see whether the state minimum or maximum is doing the capping.

If your case is moving toward a settlement conference or a mediation date, the settlement calculator is built for that conversation. It combines your injury type, your impairment rating, your wage, and your medical costs into a single settlement range, then nets out an attorney fee if one applies. This is the tool to run before you hear the adjuster's opening number, not after. One caveat: if your injury happened in Texas, use the Texas workers comp settlement calculator instead, because Texas pays impairment income benefits on a fixed statutory formula and the negotiated lump-sum settlement mostly does not exist there.

If a doctor has assigned you a permanent impairment rating and you are trying to understand what that percentage is worth in dollars, use the disability rating calculator. It isolates the permanent side of the claim from the temporary side, which matters because the two are calculated differently and settle on different timelines.

Many claims eventually touch all four questions in sequence: first lost wages while you heal, then a weekly rate check once benefits start, then a rating once you reach maximum medical improvement, then a settlement figure once the rating is final. Running the matching calculator at each stage, rather than trying to force one tool to answer every question, keeps the numbers closer to what your case actually supports.

What the math behind these tools assumes

Every one of these calculators rests on the same handful of assumptions, and knowing them matters more than the output itself. The default weekly benefit rate used across the site is two-thirds of average weekly wage, which is the model most states lean on, though a few use 60% or 70% instead. That two-thirds figure is a default you can change in the lost wages and weekly benefit tools if your state's actual rate differs.

That weekly rate is capped. The default cap built into these calculators is $1,200 per week, which is a placeholder, not any single state's real maximum. Real state maximums for 2026 range from about $1,222 in New York to roughly $1,764 in California, a spread of more than 40%, according to the 2026 Benefit Formula Reference. If you know your state's published maximum, replace the $1,200 default with that number before you trust the output.

Permanent awards are built from a body-part schedule: a fixed number of weeks assigned to each injured body part (400 for a back, 300 for a neck, 250 for a shoulder, 200 for a knee, 150 for a hand, 500 for a head injury, and so on in this site's model). Your impairment rating, expressed as a percentage, is applied against that scheduled week count. A 15% rating on a 400-week back schedule awards 60 weeks, for example. Your own state's schedule may assign different week counts to the same body parts, so treat the numbers here as a structure to understand, not a lookup table for your exact state.

If you plan to hire, or already have, a workers' comp attorney, the settlement calculator models a contingency fee of 18% off the gross settlement. Actual attorney fee caps vary by state and by fee agreement, so confirm your attorney's actual percentage rather than assuming 18% applies to your case.

None of these calculators know your medical history, your treating physician, your employer's insurance carrier, or the specific law in your state. They turn a formula into a number. They do not turn a number into legal advice.

Where people talk themselves into a worse number

The most common mistake is treating the adjuster's first offer as the ceiling instead of the opening bid. Insurance adjusters are trained to open low and let an unrepresented worker anchor to that figure. Running your own estimate before that conversation gives you a number to compare against, rather than a number to simply accept.

A close second is forgetting to add medical costs into a settlement estimate. A settlement figure built only from scheduled weeks and impairment rating leaves out every dollar of unpaid or future medical treatment tied to the injury, which can be a meaningful share of the total.

People also frequently assume their state's wage cap matches whatever number a calculator defaults to, without checking. A worker earning well above the state maximum will not receive two-thirds of their real paycheck. They will receive two-thirds up to the cap, and the difference between those two numbers can be hundreds of dollars a week.

Another recurring error is guessing at an impairment rating instead of getting one from a physician. The rating is a formal medical determination made after you reach maximum medical improvement, not a number you estimate based on how your injury feels. Running a calculator with a guessed rating produces a number that has no relationship to what a doctor will actually assign.

Finally, waiting too long to file or to raise a dispute costs workers money every year. Deadlines for reporting an injury, filing a claim, and challenging a denied or low rating are all governed by state-specific time limits. A strong claim delivered late can be worth less, or nothing, compared to a modest claim delivered on time.