California Workers' Comp Settlement Calculator and PD Payout Chart

California publishes no average workers' comp settlement, though nearly every other page repeats $21,800. That is not California's average. The number came from a reader survey across all fifty states, with no separate California result. Calling it the California average is the most common mistake on this topic.

California gives you something more useful than an average: a set payout for each rating. The permanent disability portion is fixed by statute. Know your percentage, and you can calculate that part of the check instead of guessing. The ranges below show where California claims commonly settle after the rating, unpaid medical bills, and future treatment are counted.

The permanent disability figures use the statutory 2026 maximum of $290.00 per week. The total ranges show how California claims commonly settle once medical care has a value; individual settlements remain confidential and vary widely. Use these as starting points, not promises. To see a number for your own case, use the free California calculator.

No. This is the most important rule to get right in a California claim. Most states give each body part a fixed number of weeks on a schedule of injuries. North Carolina values a back at 300 weeks and an arm at 240; South Carolina assigns 300 weeks to a shoulder. California assigns none of those amounts. It has no schedule of injuries by body part.

California instead uses the 2005 Schedule for Rating Permanent Disabilities to turn medical impairment into one disability percentage, then reads its payout from the Labor Code 4658(e) table. The injured body part matters only because it directs the doctor to an AMA Guides chapter and determines the occupational variant. But two people with the same shoulder injury can receive very different percentages because one does a different job or was a different age when injured.

Four amounts still owed by the insurer make up a California settlement: the permanent disability award, unpaid temporary disability, unpaid medical care, and expected future treatment. Those are the four parts of a California settlement. The statute fixes only the permanent disability portion, which is why your rating carries so much weight.

California's week brackets climb as the rating rises, so the top end pays far more than a straight percentage suggests. Under Labor Code 4658(e), each disability point earns 3 weeks through 9.75%, then 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and finally 16 weeks per point from 70% to 99.75%. At 70%, the weeks for each new point jump from 8 to 16. Under Labor Code 4658(e), the 16-week bracket doubles the value of each point above the line, making the fight over reaching 70% California comp's costliest rating dispute.

Source: California Labor Code section 4658(e), amended by SB 863, for injuries on or after January 1, 2013. Each bracket builds on the last: a 20% rating earns 3 weeks per point through 9.75%, 4 per point through 14.75%, and 5 per point from there to 20%.

Here is the California settlement chart. Find your permanent disability percentage at left; the row shows your owed weeks and the total at the 2026 maximum PD rate of $290.00 a week. Earned under $435 a week before the injury? Your weekly PD rate is instead two-thirds of your average weekly wage, with a $160.00 minimum. Multiply the chart's weeks by that personal rate to see your payout.

The week counts build through the Labor Code 4658(e) brackets. The DWC Guidebook for Injured Workers gives two matching examples: total vision loss in one eye rates 28% and pays $34,437.50; an index finger amputated at the middle joint rates 11% and pays $9,932.50. The DWC examples both use the $290.00 weekly maximum, unchanged since 2013, and confirm the chart's week calculations. At 100%, the benefit becomes permanent total disability: payments continue for life at the temporary disability rate and rise each year with the cost of living.

The number your doctor writes is only the starting point. The 2005 Schedule for Rating Permanent Disabilities takes it through five steps to reach your final percentage. California records those steps in one line, a rating string. Every stage offers another way for points to disappear. Read the string to see whether the final rating is too low and where the loss occurred.

Step 1: the impairment number and whole person impairment

First your doctor declares you permanent and stationary: you have reached maximal medical improvement. The doctor then assigns an impairment rating using the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, Fifth Edition, which Labor Code 4660(b)(1) requires in California. That produces a whole person impairment percentage linked to a four-part impairment number.

Step 2: the 1.4 modifier

For injuries on or after January 1, 2013, the rater multiplies whole person impairment by 1.4 under Labor Code 4660.1. SB 863 removed the old future earning capacity adjustment; the 1.4 modifier took its place. The Division of Workers' Compensation provides the precise conversion table. The table reaches its limit at 72% whole person impairment: that rating or anything higher converts to 100%.

Source: California Division of Workers' Compensation, Modification to Whole Person Impairment. The full table runs from 1% to 100% in single steps.

Step 3: your occupational group

Your job goes into one of California's 45 numbered occupational groups. Each has a three-digit code whose first digit ranks physical demands from 1 to 5. A warehouse checker falls in 360, a forklift operator in 351, a janitor in 340, and a police officer or firefighter in 490. When the list does not name your job, the rater compares your duties with the listed jobs and chooses the nearest group.

Step 4: the occupational variant

The Schedule matches your impairment number to your occupational group and assigns a letter from C through J. F reflects average demands on the affected body part, so the rating stays put. C, D, and E pull it down; G through J push it up. A clerical worker's spine impairment can land at C or D while heavy construction reaches I or J. Same back injury, much bigger payout for the laborer than for the office worker.

Step 5: the age adjustment

The last step uses your age when the injury happened. Brackets run from 21 and under through 62 and over; ages 37 to 41 are the midpoint and do not change the rating. The Schedule gives younger workers a slightly lower percentage because it assumes more years to adapt, and older workers a higher one. Start with 20%, and a worker of 21 or younger finishes at 16%; a worker of 62 or older finishes at 26%.

Follow one realistic California claim from the first impairment number to the final check. Every step below comes from published state tables, not a guessed adjustment.

Her $26,245 is indemnity, not the full settlement. A Compromise and Release also prices in unpaid medical bills, the surgeon's expected future care (injections, medication, and a possible revision surgery), and a discount for each side's litigation risk. With future medical bought out, this claim commonly settles for $55,000 to $95,000. No suitable work offer within 60 days also means she is owed a $6,000 job displacement voucher, which makes her eligible for a separate $5,000 Return-to-Work Supplement.

California never adds injury ratings. Section 8 of the Schedule uses the Combined Values Chart and the formula a + b(1 - a), with both ratings written as decimals. The second injury counts against the ability left after the first. Your combined rating therefore always comes in below the arithmetic sum.

Each impairment must be converted to the whole person scale before the ratings can be combined. For three or more ratings, start with the two highest and round their combined value to the nearest whole percent. Combine that result with the next highest, rounding again after each step. Changing the order or missing a rounding step can shift the answer by a point.

Apportionment makes the biggest hidden cut to a California workers' comp check. Labor Code 4663 ties apportionment to causation. Your doctor must estimate how much of your permanent disability came from the work injury and how much from other causes, including arthritis, aging, or an earlier injury. Only the work-caused percentage goes into your payment.

If asked, you must disclose earlier permanent disabilities and physical impairments under the same statute. Labor Code sections 3212 through 3213.2 exempt certain presumptive conditions affecting police, firefighters, and other public safety workers from apportionment. That is one reason their claims are valued differently.

Labor Code 4664 adds another ceiling: permanent disability awards for one body region cannot total more than 100% during your lifetime. The seven regions are hearing; vision; mental and behavioral disorders; spine; upper extremities, including shoulders; lower extremities, including hips; and the head, face, cardiovascular, respiratory, and all other systems. An earlier award in a region comes off what a new injury to that region can pay.

Your California settlement puts a price on unpaid benefits and the care you will need later. Watch which disability check you are looking at: temporary and permanent disability have very different rates. That change surprises most injured workers when the smaller permanent disability checks arrive.

Source: the California Division of Workers' Compensation benefit rate chart and the California Labor Code. Your injury date fixes the applicable rate. A 2024 injury still uses the 2024 temporary disability maximum of $1,619.15 even if you settle later.

California gives you two settlement paths. Choosing between them usually matters more than squeezing out the last few thousand dollars. A workers' compensation judge reviews either agreement and must independently find it adequate before it binds you.

Four things the C&R form does that most workers do not expect

• It releases your dependents' death benefits. Under paragraph 4 of the state form, approval releases any and all of your dependents' death benefit claims connected to the covered injuries unless the agreement expressly preserves them. If the injury might shorten your life, that language matters enormously.
• It settles only the body parts you listed. You cannot add body parts, conditions, or systems by simply referring to a medical report, the form says. A part missing from the form is not settled and earns no payment.
• It does not release your voucher. Paragraph 5 keeps supplemental job displacement benefits in place unless a judge expressly orders otherwise. The $6,000 voucher remains yours after a C&R.
• It carries a capitalized warning about other benefits. The Compromise and Release form warns that Social Security, Medicare, and long-term disability benefits may change. Two disinterested witnesses must witness your signature, or it must be notarized.

California gives you a powerful presumption most injured workers never hear about. After you file the claim form or report the injury, the claims administrator has 90 days to send a written denial; without one, the claim is generally presumed accepted. Filing your DWC-1 promptly starts that clock. Do it even if your employer tells you the form is unnecessary.

If the claims administrator sends a benefit late, you are owed an extra 10%. Without a reasonable excuse for the delay, the Appeals Board can add up to 25% of each late payment, subject to a $10,000 cap. Labor Code 132a separately bars retaliation because you filed a claim.

No matter how painful the injury, California workers' compensation pays nothing for pain and suffering or emotional distress. Benefits are owed without proving fault, but you give up the right to sue your employer. That is why a serious comp settlement looks small beside a personal injury verdict for the same harm. The missing pain-and-suffering payment is the main reason to check for a claim against someone outside your employer in every California case.

There is one narrow way to increase the comp payment itself. If serious and willful misconduct by your employer or one of its managing officers caused the injury, Labor Code 4553 raises the otherwise recoverable compensation by one half, plus costs and expenses up to $250.

Nearly every input that builds your California rating is contested. Protect the number that decides your whole payout with these steps.

Four numbers drive your California settlement: the final permanent disability percentage, the portion left after apportionment, your average weekly wage, and the cost of future medical care. SetCalc's free AI calculator compares those facts with real outcomes to estimate the value; a California attorney reviews the estimate with you at no cost.

We track 94 reported California work-injury results pursued outside comp; half exceed $5,000,000. These are third-party cases against someone other than the employer, so their figures run far above the comp payouts here. An ordinary California comp claim follows the statutory chart above. Browse every record free in our settlement and verdict database.