Florida Workers Comp Washout Settlement Calculator

How this calculator works

A Florida workers' compensation claim is routinely closed out by a lump-sum "washout" settlement under F.S. § 440.20(11), the most carrier-favorable workers' compensation settlement statute in the United States. Under § 440.20(11)(c), a represented claimant can settle the claim on a full-and-final basis — extinguishing future indemnity, future medical, and reopener rights in exchange for a single lump-sum payment — and the Judge of Compensation Claims reviews only the reasonableness of the F.S. § 440.34 attorney's fee, not the merits of the underlying settlement. The structural posture is consequential: once the claimant has retained counsel, the carrier and claimant counsel negotiate the close-out on a private-mediation footing without a JCC fairness check on the dollar figure. The calculator computes the claim's full value, applies the typical Florida mediation discount, runs the § 440.34 fee schedule, and reads the settlement against the federal SMART Act Medicare Set-Aside posture for Medicare-eligible claimants.

The full value of the claim is the sum of three components. Past indemnity is the weekly indemnity rate (two-thirds of AWW under F.S. § 440.15, subject to the statewide maximum compensation rate published annually by the Division of Workers' Compensation) multiplied by the weeks of disability already paid out. Past indemnity is informational — the sunk benefits are not part of the settlement leverage, but the carrier reads them as the floor on its prior exposure. Future indemnity present-value is the weekly indemnity rate multiplied by the permanent-impairment rating fraction assigned by the authorized treating physician under F.S. § 440.15(3)(a), multiplied by the expected remaining indemnity weeks, with the remaining-weeks figure capped at the F.S. § 440.15(3)(c) 401-week statutory maximum for permanent-partial impairment benefits. Permanent-total cases under F.S. § 440.15(1) are not capped at 401 weeks (benefits continue for life) and are outside the scope of this estimator. Future medical reserve is the projected present-value of future medical expenses — continuing physical therapy, follow-up imaging, future surgical intervention, pain management, durable medical equipment, and life-care plan items in catastrophic cases. The carrier's medical reserve commonly lands at 30 to 50 percent of the total washout settlement on Florida § 440.20(11) close-outs.

The Florida mediation discount

Florida workers' compensation settlements rarely settle at full value. The mediation negotiation discount typically lands the gross settlement at 50 to 70 percent of the calculated full value, reflecting the carrier's structural leverage under § 440.20(11)(c) and the claimant's preference for lump-sum certainty over the litigation tail. Higher percentages (70 to 85 percent) are achievable when the carrier has clear permanent-total exposure under F.S. § 440.15(1), a clean compensability picture, and an aggressive claimant counsel willing to take the case to merits hearing before the Judge of Compensation Claims. Lower percentages (35 to 50 percent) reflect compensability disputes under F.S. § 440.09, a strong major-contributing-cause defense under § 440.09(1)(b), significant pre-existing condition issues, or a F.S. § 440.105 misrepresentation defense. Claimant counsel's leverage is principally the credible threat of going to merits hearing — without that threat, the carrier's discount widens.

The calculator parameterizes the discount as a "negotiated settlement vs full value percent" input with a default of 60 percent, in the middle of the typical Florida band. Adjust to the upper end of the band for cases with clear permanent exposure and clean compensability; adjust to the lower end for compensability-contested or major-contributing-cause cases.

The F.S. § 440.34 attorney's fee sliding scale

F.S. § 440.34 caps claimant-side attorney's fees on a Florida workers' compensation recovery at a statutory sliding scale: 20 percent of the first 10,000 dollars of benefits secured, 15 percent of the next 10,000 dollars, 10 percent of the next 10,000 dollars, and 5 percent of any amount above 30,000 dollars. The schedule is a bright-line statutory cap, not a fee-reasonableness floor. The Florida Supreme Court's 2016 decision in Castellanos v. Next Door Co., 192 So. 3d 431 (Fla. 2016), invalidated the prior strict-cap version of § 440.34 as unconstitutional as applied to cases where the statutory cap produced a fee unreasonably low relative to the work actually performed by claimant counsel. The sliding-scale framework as currently in effect remains the cap for routine cases, with hourly-fee analysis available under § 440.34(2) on a Castellanos-grounded fee petition. The Florida 1st DCA's companion 2016 decision in Miles v. City of Edgewater Police Dep't, 190 So. 3d 171 (Fla. 1st DCA 2016), addressed claimant-paid fees and the carrier-paid-fee framework under § 440.34.

On a 100,000-dollar washout settlement, the § 440.34 fee computation runs: 20 percent times the first 10,000 dollars equals 2,000 dollars; 15 percent times the next 10,000 dollars equals 1,500 dollars; 10 percent times the next 10,000 dollars equals 1,000 dollars; and 5 percent times the remaining 70,000 dollars equals 3,500 dollars — a total fee of 8,000 dollars. The schedule is regressive: the marginal rate falls sharply above 30,000 dollars, so the all-in fee percentage on a large settlement is materially below the headline 20 percent first-tier rate. Claimant counsel running a high-volume contingency practice depend on the statutory schedule producing a predictable cap; carrier counsel depend on the same schedule to bound the carrier-paid-fee exposure under § 440.34(3).

A worked example — $800 AWW, moderate permanent impairment

Take a Florida workers' compensation claim with an average weekly wage of 800 dollars, 26 weeks of temporary total disability already paid, a 10 percent permanent-impairment rating assigned by the authorized treating physician, 200 expected remaining indemnity weeks (well under the 401-week permanent-partial cap), a 50,000-dollar projected future medical reserve, a 60 percent negotiation discount (middle of the typical Florida mediation band), and a represented claimant.

The calculator computes the weekly indemnity rate at 800 dollars times two-thirds equals 533.33 dollars per week. Past indemnity is 533.33 dollars per week times 26 weeks equals approximately 13,867 dollars. Future indemnity present-value is 533.33 dollars per week times 10 percent rating times 200 weeks equals approximately 10,667 dollars. Future medical reserve is 50,000 dollars. Full claim value lands at approximately 74,533 dollars. Applying the 60 percent mediation discount produces a gross settlement of approximately 44,720 dollars. The F.S. § 440.34 attorney's fee on the gross settlement is 2,000 plus 1,500 plus 1,000 plus 5 percent times 14,720 dollars equals approximately 5,236 dollars. Net to claimant is approximately 39,484 dollars before any Medicare Set-Aside carve-out, lien resolution, or case-expense reimbursement.

Move the same facts to a catastrophic case — 2,000 dollars AWW, 50 percent rating, 401 weeks remaining at the cap, 500,000 dollars in projected future medicals — and the full-value calculation produces materially larger numbers, with the same § 440.34 schedule running on the larger gross settlement. The schedule's regressivity means the all-in fee percentage falls as the settlement size grows; the larger the case, the smaller the fraction of the recovery the attorney captures.

The federal SMART Act Medicare Set-Aside posture

The federal SMART Act (2012), implementing 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b), requires a Medicare Set-Aside (MSA) to be funded out of any workers' compensation settlement when the claimant is a current Medicare beneficiary OR is reasonably expected to become Medicare-eligible within 30 months of the settlement date. The MSA protects Medicare's secondary-payer interests by carving out a separate account, funded from the settlement, to pay future Medicare-covered medical expenses related to the work injury. CMS formally reviews MSAs that cross the bright-line thresholds — 25,000 dollars total settlement for current Medicare beneficiaries, 250,000 dollars total settlement for the 30-month reasonable-expectation cohort. Below-threshold MSAs are still required; they just are not CMS-reviewed.

Failing to fund an appropriate MSA exposes both the carrier and the claimant to Medicare recovery actions under § 1395y(b) and, in some cases, denial of future Medicare coverage for the work injury. MSA preparation is typically handled by a specialized MSA vendor on the carrier's nickel as part of the settlement package; the carrier prefers a CMS-reviewed MSA on cases above the threshold because the CMS approval letter resolves the secondary-payer exposure with finality. The calculator surfaces the SMART Act posture but does not estimate the MSA dollar figure — MSA pricing is fact-specific and depends on the claimant's age, life expectancy, treatment plan, and Medicare-covered cost projections.

What the calculator does not do

This calculator is a planning estimator. It does not project the carrier's specific reserve position, the JCC's fee-reasonableness review under Castellanos, the MSA dollar figure, the health-care lien resolution (private health insurance subrogation, Medicare conditional payment recovery, Medicaid lien), or the case-expense reimbursement against the gross settlement. It does not enforce the statewide maximum compensation rate under F.S. § 440.12 — represented settlements with above-cap AWW should be reviewed with claimant counsel. It does not project tax exposure: workers' compensation settlement payments are generally excluded from gross income under 26 U.S.C. § 104(a)(1), but structured settlements and Social Security Disability offsets can produce indirect tax consequences that require a tax professional's review.

The calculator also does not handle indemnity-only or medical-only washouts — narrower-scope settlements negotiated under § 440.20(11) that leave a portion of the claim open. Those structures are case-specific and require a Florida-licensed workers' compensation attorney's analysis. Permanent-total cases under F.S. § 440.15(1) — benefits for life with no 401-week cap — are also outside the scope and should be evaluated with claimant counsel against the permanent-total exposure pricing model.

How this page is maintained

F.S. § 440.20(11) has been substantially stable as the Florida workers' compensation settlement framework; the represented-versus-unrepresented JCC review distinction is the operating structure. F.S. § 440.34 was reframed by the Florida Supreme Court in Castellanos v. Next Door Co. (2016) and the Florida 1st DCA in Miles v. City of Edgewater (2016); the sliding-scale schedule remains the bright-line cap with hourly-fee analysis available under § 440.34(2) on a Castellanos-grounded petition. The federal SMART Act (2012) is the operating federal-law anchor for MSAs; CMS publishes the Workers' Compensation Medicare Set-Aside Reference Guide on an ongoing basis. The 50 to 70 percent mediation-discount band reflects 2022-2026 Florida workers' compensation mediation reporting and is refreshed at least annually. If the legislature substantively changes either anchor statute, this page is updated and re-stamped within the quarter.

Last reviewed: 2026-05-15 against F.S. § 440.20(11), F.S. § 440.15, F.S. § 440.34, the federal SMART Act (2012) and 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b), the CMS Workers' Compensation Medicare Set-Aside Reference Guide 2024-2026, Florida 1st DCA jurisprudence including Castellanos v. Next Door Co., 192 So. 3d 431 (Fla. 2016) and Miles v. City of Edgewater Police Dep't, 190 So. 3d 171 (Fla. 1st DCA 2016), and Florida mediation settled-claim reporting on workers' compensation washouts 2022-2026.