Fifty states. Fifty different systems.
"Workers' compensation" isn't one law — it's fifty-plus separate systems with different deadlines, different benefits, and even different answers to "who picks my doctor?" Your rights depend entirely on where you were injured. All fifty states and D.C. are live below — find yours.
California
Signature fact: if the insurer doesn't deny your claim within 90 days, it's presumed covered — and up to $10,000 of treatment must be paid while they decide.
Read the California guide → LiveTexas
Signature fact: the only state where employers can opt out entirely — and injured workers of "non-subscribers" can sue for negligence instead.
Read the Texas guide → LiveFlorida
Signature fact: the carrier picks your treating doctor, you get exactly one change — and temporary wage benefits stop at 104 weeks.
Read the Florida guide → LiveNew York
Signature fact: you choose your own doctor — and a permanently limited shoulder or knee can be worth a schedule award even after you're back at full pay.
Read the New York guide → LiveIllinois
Signature fact: you get two doctor choices of your own (plus their referral chains) — and a wage-differential benefit most workers never hear about.
Read the Illinois guide → LivePennsylvania
Signature fact: the posted panel controls your first 90 days of doctors — and a "temporary" acceptance notice can pay for 90 days and then vanish.
Read the Pennsylvania guide → LiveGeorgia
Signature fact: benefits stop at 400 weeks for non-catastrophic injuries — making the "catastrophic" designation the biggest fight in the state.
Read the Georgia guide → LiveOhio
Signature fact: the state itself is the insurer (BWC) — with 14-day appeal windows that make every envelope urgent.
Read the Ohio guide → LiveWashington
Signature fact: you've been paying premiums from your own paycheck — and time-loss checks grow with your spouse and kids.
Read the Washington guide → LiveMichigan
Signature fact: the employer's doctor controls only the first 28 days — day 29, the choice is yours. Benefits run on an 80% after-tax formula.
Read the Michigan guide → LiveNorth Carolina
Signature fact: paid medical bills don't substitute for filing the Form 18 — the two-year trap that quietly ends more claims than any denial.
Read the North Carolina guide → LiveNew Jersey
Signature fact: the most generous big-state wage formula (70%) — but the insurer picks your doctors, and Section 20 vs. 22 decides whether your claim can ever reopen.
Read the New Jersey guide → LiveVirginia
Signature fact: voluntary checks protect nothing — only a filed claim and an entered Award Agreement do. Plus the strictest "arising out of" doctrine in the country.
Read the Virginia guide → LiveTennessee
Signature fact: fifteen days to report — one of America's shortest windows — and your panel-of-three doctor pick carries a presumption of correctness.
Read the Tennessee guide → LiveMissouri
Signature fact: the employer picks your doctor — go your own way and you'll likely pay for it — and work must be the "prevailing factor," making precise words unusually valuable.
Read the Missouri guide → LiveIndiana
Signature fact: the employer chooses your doctor, and permanency pays by the "degree" — fixed dollars per degree of impairment, which makes the rating itself the entire fight.
Read the Indiana guide → LiveMinnesota
Signature fact: you pick your own doctor and get a QRC — your own vocational rehab consultant — but the filing clock's length depends on paperwork your employer was supposed to file.
Read the Minnesota guide → LiveWisconsin
Signature fact: free choice of doctor (with a full second choice by right), a 12-year long-tail statute, and statutory minimum PPD ratings for common surgeries.
Read the Wisconsin guide → LiveColorado
Signature fact: the Final Admission of Liability closes your case automatically unless you object within 30 days — the most dangerous "good news" letter in workers' comp.
Read the Colorado guide → LiveArizona
Signature fact: one year to file — shorter than most — and every insurer decision arrives as a notice that becomes final if you don't protest within 90 days.
Read the Arizona guide → LiveMaryland
Signature fact: you choose your own doctor and file your own claim — and a permanency award crossing 175 weeks ("serious disability") raises the weekly rate for every single week.
Read the Maryland guide → LiveMassachusetts
Signature fact: the insurer can pay you for 180 days without accepting your claim — and stop with 7 days' notice. Checks arriving ≠ claim accepted.
Read the Massachusetts guide → LiveConnecticut
Signature fact: file a proper Form 30C and the clock runs against them — 28 days to properly contest or be precluded from contesting at all.
Read the Connecticut guide → LiveSouth Carolina
Signature fact: the employer picks your doctor inside a 500-week benefit frame — and a back impairment over 50% is presumed to be total disability.
Read the South Carolina guide → LiveAlabama
Signature fact: disputes go to real circuit courts, a dissatisfied worker can demand a panel of four doctors — and the PPD cap has been $220/week since 1987.
Read the Alabama guide → LiveOregon
Signature fact: your claim is accepted as a list of named conditions — and a denied surgery usually means the real diagnosis was never added to the list.
Read the Oregon guide → LiveNevada
Signature fact: the claim form (C-4) only exists at the doctor's office — telling your boss isn't a claim, and every insurer decision has a 70-day appeal window.
Read the Nevada guide → LiveKentucky
Signature fact: if you can't return to the type of work you did before, your permanency award is generally tripled — one question worth more than the rating itself.
Read the Kentucky guide → LiveLouisiana
Signature fact: your own doctor in every specialty — but a 1-year "prescription" that extinguishes late claims, and a wage benefit that turns on the 90% earnings line.
Read the Louisiana guide → LiveOklahoma
Signature fact: a system rebuilt in 2014 with short clocks — one year to file — an employer-picked doctor with one change by right, and a 70% formula under tight caps.
Read the Oklahoma guide → LiveIowa
Signature fact: the employer picks your doctor — but Iowa's alternate-care petition gets failing treatment fixed in days, and whole-body injuries pay on lost earning capacity, not just the rating.
Read the Iowa guide → LiveKansas
Signature fact: twenty days to report — one of America's shortest — a $500 allowance for a doctor of your own, and hard dollar caps on even the most serious claims.
Read the Kansas guide → LiveArkansas
Signature fact: no objective medical findings, no claim — the strictest evidence rule in the country makes early imaging and precise charts the whole game.
Read the Arkansas guide → LiveMississippi
Signature fact: one treating physician of your free choice (referrals travel with you) — inside a 450-week frame with some of the lowest caps in America.
Read the Mississippi guide → LiveNew Mexico
Signature fact: the 60-day doctor swap — whoever picked the doctor first only controls the choice for 60 days; day 61, the other side can change. Nowhere else in America.
Read the New Mexico guide → LiveUtah
Signature fact: 180 days to report — among America's longest — but the employer's preferred-provider network controls your first medical move.
Read the Utah guide → LiveNebraska
Signature fact: a dedicated Workers' Compensation Court — and a rule that lets you keep your own family doctor as treating physician if you name them in time.
Read the Nebraska guide → LiveWest Virginia
Signature fact: six months to file your claim — one of America's shortest windows — in a system privatized in 2006 where every order carries a printed protest deadline.
Read the West Virginia guide → LiveIdaho
Signature fact: the employer designates your doctor and the complaint clock is one year — but "disability in excess of impairment" can pay well beyond the rating.
Read the Idaho guide → LiveMontana
Signature fact: you pick your first treating doctor — your freest choice — then the insurer gains approval rights. Twelve months to file, and a dedicated WC Court.
Read the Montana guide → LiveMaine
Signature fact: the state assigns you a free Worker Advocate to fight disputed claims — and the employer's doctor-control window lasts just 10 days.
Read the Maine guide → LiveNew Hampshire
Signature fact: your own doctor, unusually long clocks, and a reinstatement statute that protects your old job — but a 60% formula that makes wage math worth auditing.
Read the New Hampshire guide → LiveRhode Island
Signature fact: a dedicated court whose pretrial orders move money within weeks — benefits often start (or stop) at the very first conference.
Read the Rhode Island guide → LiveVermont
Signature fact: the insurer must pay or deny within 21 days — and the Division actively chases violations. Checks grow with your dependents.
Read the Vermont guide → LiveDelaware
Signature fact: treat with a state-certified doctor and treatment is presumed compensable — no preauthorization fights. Ask one question: "are you certified?"
Read the Delaware guide → LiveSouth Dakota
Signature fact: written notice within three business days — the shortest injury-notice window in America.
Read the South Dakota guide → LiveHawaii
Signature fact: the law presumes your claim is covered — the insurer must prove otherwise. America's most worker-friendly causation rule, reaching even stress claims.
Read the Hawaii guide → LiveAlaska
Signature fact: 80% of your after-tax wages — America's richest formula — plus automatic 25% penalties when insurers pay late without a formal controversion.
Read the Alaska guide → LiveNorth Dakota
Signature fact: one insurer, and it's the state — WSI decides and pays every claim, and each decision letter carries its own 30-day appeal window.
Read the North Dakota guide → LiveWyoming
Signature fact: 72 hours to tell your employer, 10 days to file with the state — miss them and the law presumes your claim should be denied.
Read the Wyoming guide → LiveWashington, D.C.
Signature fact: worker-tilted rules, your own doctor, and COLAs — but a 1-year clock, and a DMV jurisdiction choice (D.C./MD/VA) that can change a claim's value dramatically.
Read the D.C. guide →The same injury, four different systems
| California | Texas | Florida | New York | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coverage required? | Yes — virtually all employers | Optional for most private employers | Yes — 1+ construction, 4+ most others | Yes — virtually all employers |
| Report to employer | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days | 30 days, in writing |
| File formal claim | 1 year | 1 year (DWC-041) | 2 years (Petition) | 2 years (Form C-3) |
| Who picks the doctor? | Insurer's network (MPN) — you choose within it | You, within network if employer has one | The carrier — one change allowed | You — any Board-authorized provider |
| Neutral exam disputes | QME / AME | Designated doctor | IMEs + expert medical advisor | Dueling reports before a Law Judge |
| Dispute forum | WCAB judges | BRC → CCH → Appeals Panel | Mediation → JCC | Board Law Judges → Board panel |
| Full settlement | Compromise & Release | Rare — benefits by statute | Lump-sum settlements | Section 32 agreement |
This is why generic internet advice fails injured workers: every row of that table changes the right move. When in doubt, your state's guide — and your state's free help office — beat any national generalization, including ours.
Enter your state and injury date, and the Deadline Checker calculates your reporting and filing windows — with honest notes about exceptions.
All 50 states + D.C. — complete.
Every American jurisdiction now has its definitive plain-English guide — deadlines, doctor rules, benefits, dispute process, and the one fact each system hides. Wherever you were hurt, your guide is above. Each is reviewed on a scheduled cycle; the "Reviewed" date on every guide tells you when.
Not sure where you stand? Have a lawyer look — free.
A few quick taps connects you with a licensed workers' comp attorney in your state. No cost, no obligation, no pressure.