Kentucky Workers' Comp Settlement Calculator
Estimate a workers' comp settlement under Kentucky law. The calculator applies this jurisdiction's own benefit rate and weekly maximum, and every figure below is the one our verified data holds, with the statute behind it and the date we checked it.
What Kentucky pays, and when you must act
Workers' compensation pays a share of your wage while you cannot work, whoever was at fault, up to a weekly maximum the state sets. Two deadlines run from the injury: one for reporting it and one for filing the claim. Here is what we hold for this state.
Effective January 1 to December 31, 2026.
KRS 342.730·Last reviewed 2026-07-28
Two years from the accident is the earliest a Kentucky workers' compensation filing deadline can fall, and not always the deadline itself. KRS 342.185(1) requires the application for adjustment of claim "within two (2) years after the date of the accident, or in case of death, within two (2) years after the death", and goes on: "If payments of income benefits have been made, the filing of an application for adjustment of claim with the department within the period shall not be required, but shall become requisite within two (2) years following the suspension of payments or within two (2) years of the date of the accident, whichever is later." So where income benefits were paid, the application is due within two years following the suspension of payments where that falls later than two years from the accident, and never earlier. Subsections (2) and (3) of the same section set other periods for work-related exposure to the human immunodeficiency virus and for a cumulative trauma injury. Ask a licensed Kentucky attorney which date applies to your claim.
KRS 342.185(1)·Last reviewed 2026-10-04
KRS § 342.185·Last reviewed 2026-08-09
“This provision shall not be construed to prevent the voluntary payment of compensation for the periods and in the amounts prescribed by this chapter, but nothing shall operate as a final settlement except a memorandum of agreement filed with the commissioner and approved by the administrative law judge.”
KRS 342.265(1)·Last reviewed 2026-10-07
What Kentucky pays at different wages
The weekly benefit the calculator above pays at six average weekly wages, and what that comes to over 12 weeks out of work. The numbers are the engine's output, not an editorial claim about what these claims are worth.
Temporary total disability only, run through the calculator above at each wage: no medical costs, no permanent impairment, no waiting period or limit on the number of weeks, and one rate for every week, so a different rate the state sets for part of a claim (see the note under the maximum) is not applied. Below a wage of about $1,917 a week the benefit is 66.67% of the wage; above it, Kentucky's maximum of $1,277.99 sets the benefit instead. These wages illustrate the rule; they are not an estimate of your claim.
Every Kentucky deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Kentucky periods in our verified data, with the statute behind each one. A deadline is the outside limit, never a target, and other rules can shorten it.
KRS § 413.140(1)(a)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the personal injury calculatorKRS § 413.140(1)(e), (2)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the medical malpractice calculatorFor a death caused by a motor-vehicle crash in Kentucky, the one year published here may not be the deadline that governs, and the question is not settled at the Kentucky Supreme Court. The one year is the general wrongful-death period under KRS §§ 413.140 and 413.180. KRS § 304.39-230(6), the provision that sets the filing deadline for a Kentucky car accident, allows an action "not later than two (2) years after the injury, or the death, or the date of issuance of the last basic or added reparation payment". In Hammers v. Plunk, a published 2011 decision, the Kentucky Court of Appeals held that an estate's wrongful-death claims arising out of an automobile accident "covered under the MVRA" are "covered under the two-year limitations period set forth in KRS 304.39-230(6)", running from the last reparation payment where that came later. The Kentucky Supreme Court has not decided the point. The same decision kept the children's loss-of-consortium claims in that case on one year, and the two years applies only where the crash falls within Kentucky's Motor Vehicle Reparations Act. This calculator serves deaths of every kind, so it keeps the one year, and a family inside it is inside both readings. Speak to a licensed Kentucky attorney well inside it.
KRS §§ 413.140, 413.180·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the wrongful death calculatorTwo years from the accident is the earliest a Kentucky workers' compensation filing deadline can fall, and not always the deadline itself. KRS 342.185(1) requires the application for adjustment of claim "within two (2) years after the date of the accident, or in case of death, within two (2) years after the death", and goes on: "If payments of income benefits have been made, the filing of an application for adjustment of claim with the department within the period shall not be required, but shall become requisite within two (2) years following the suspension of payments or within two (2) years of the date of the accident, whichever is later." So where income benefits were paid, the application is due within two years following the suspension of payments where that falls later than two years from the accident, and never earlier. Subsections (2) and (3) of the same section set other periods for work-related exposure to the human immunodeficiency virus and for a cumulative trauma injury. Ask a licensed Kentucky attorney which date applies to your claim.
KRS 342.185(1)·Last reviewed 2026-10-04
Open the workers compensation calculatorKentucky's motor-vehicle filing deadline is set by KRS § 304.39-230(6), not by the one-year general personal-injury period in KRS § 413.140(1)(a). That provision gives two years after the injury or the death, or two years after the date of issuance of the last basic or added reparation payment made by any reparation obligor, whichever falls later. Two years from the crash is therefore the EARLIEST your deadline can fall and not the deadline itself: where no-fault payments were still being issued after that point, the clock runs from the last one, and only your own record of those payments fixes the later date. The provision governs tort liability not abolished by KRS § 304.39-060, Kentucky's no-fault threshold, so speak to a licensed Kentucky attorney before relying on either date.
Riding a motorcycle? No Kentucky court decision read for this site says whether this provision reaches a rider's claim, so this site gives a rider's claim in Kentucky one year, the general personal-injury period, as the earliest its deadline can fall. The motorcycle accident calculator shows the period a rider's claim in Kentucky is given, and why.
Riding a bicycle? No Kentucky court decision read for this site says whether this provision reaches a cyclist's claim, so this site gives a cyclist's claim in Kentucky one year, the general personal-injury period, as the earliest its deadline can fall. The bicycle accident calculator shows the period a cyclist's claim in Kentucky is given, and why.
KRS § 304.39-230(6)·Last reviewed 2026-09-20
Open the motor vehicle claims calculatorKentucky against the rest of the country
Every count below is read from our state-law data across all 51 jurisdictions, so it moves when the data does. What you will not find here is an average settlement figure: the only one we could compute is a model, and a model presented as a measurement is not a fact.
- 39 of the 51 jurisdictions we track pay 66.67% of the wage, the most common rate, and Kentucky is one of them. It applies the rate to gross wages, as 47 of the 51 do; the rest use after-tax earnings.
- Of the 34 jurisdictions with a verified maximum weekly benefit in our data, Kentucky's $1,277.99 is the 21st highest, and they run from $800 in Georgia to $2,431 in Iowa. Each state resets its maximum on its own date, so these are the figures our data holds rather than one day's.
- Kentucky allows at least 2 years to file, and that is the earliest its deadline can fall rather than a fixed limit, because the governing provision also runs from a later event. This page does not set that against the 2 years that 24 jurisdictions publish, because for those we hold a period and no later event, which is a different claim. Across the 51 jurisdictions the deadline for this case type runs from 1 year to 4 years.
- In 44 of the 51 jurisdictions, the statute we read provides for settling or commuting a claim to a lump sum on the terms it states; in 4 it allows one only in the cases it names; and for 3 we could not read an official copy. Kentucky is in the first group.
Comparisons are drawn from the rules that set a benefit, not from closed-claim data, which we do not hold. See the full methodology
Kentucky calculators
Kentucky Workers' Comp questions
Every document behind our workers' compensation figures, each linked with the date we last read it, is listed on our Workers' Compensation research sources page.