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Permanent disability in California

By Richard Vaughn CPCU, ARM, AIS. Reviewed November 8, 2026. Richard is an insurance professional, not an attorney. This page explains the law; it is not legal advice.

What permanent disability pays for

Permanent disability (PD) compensates a lasting impairment after your condition has stopped improving. The treating doctor declares you permanent and stationary (P&S), also called maximal medical improvement (MMI), and writes a report describing your medical findings, work restrictions, future care, whether you can return to your job, and how much of the disability comes from work versus other causes. That report, not the injury itself, is where the money starts.

The report is turned into a percentage rating from 1% to 99% for a permanent partial disability, or 100% for a permanent total disability. The percentage sets how many weeks of payments you receive (Labor Code §4658(e)), and your pre-injury earnings set the weekly rate within the year's minimum and maximum (Labor Code §4453(b)).

How the rating is reached

For injuries on or after January 1, 2013, the doctor rates your impairment under the AMA Guides as a whole-person impairment (WPI) percentage. That number is multiplied by 1.4 (Labor Code §4660.1), then adjusted for your occupation and your age at injury under the 2005 Schedule for Rating Permanent Disabilities. The result is the rating. The WPI-to-rating step alone looks like this:

Apportionment is applied before the weeks are counted: only the share of the disability the doctor attributes to the work injury is compensated. Workers without an attorney who were examined by a qualified medical evaluator (QME) have the report rated by a DWC disability rater; represented workers usually have the rating negotiated or decided by a judge.

Weeks of payment by rating

For injuries on or after January 1, 2013, each percentage point is paid for a set number of weeks, and the number rises with the rating (Labor Code §4658(e)):

The bands add up. A 30% rating is 10 points at 3 weeks, 5 at 4, 10 at 5 and 5 at 6: 130 weeks. Here are the totals at round numbers:

Weekly rate by year of injury

The weekly PD rate is two-thirds of your average weekly earnings, but not less than the minimum or more than the maximum for your year of injury. Unlike temporary disability, the PD maximum does not rise with the state average weekly wage, so it has been the same since 2014 (Labor Code §4453(b)):

For injuries in 2026 the weekly PD rate is between $160.00 and $290.00, and the maximum applies once average weekly earnings reach $435.00. Most full-time workers are at the maximum.

Life pension at 70% and above

A rating of 70% to 99.75% adds a life pension after the PD weeks run out: 1.5% of average weekly earnings for each 1% of disability above 60%, paid for life. For this calculation average weekly earnings are capped at $515.38 for injuries on or after January 1, 2006, so a 70% rating produces a pension of 15% of that capped figure. For injuries on or after January 1, 2003, the pension rises each January 1 by the percentage change in the state average weekly wage (Labor Code §4659(a), (c)). The calculator flags the pension but does not add it to the total, because its weekly amount depends on earnings and the yearly adjustment.

When payments are made

If you were receiving temporary disability, the first PD payment is due within 14 days after the last TD payment; otherwise within 14 days after the claims administrator learns of the permanent disability. Payments continue every two weeks (Labor Code §4650(b), (c)). The claims administrator pays its reasonable estimate of the PD owed while the exact rating is still being worked out. A late payment carries an automatic 10% increase (Labor Code §4650(d)).

Before an award, payments can be withheld if your employer has offered you work paying at least 85% of your pre-injury wages and compensation, or you are working a job paying at least 100%; the PD is then paid when a judge approves the award, calculated from the last TD payment or the P&S date, whichever is earlier (Labor Code §4650(b)(2)).

How the case ends

Permanent disability resolves one of three ways. In stipulations with request for award (Stips), you and the claims administrator agree on the rating and the payments continue on schedule, usually with future medical care kept open and the right to reopen for new and further disability within five years of the injury. In a compromise and release (C&R), you take a lump sum that replaces the remaining payments and, usually, future medical care, and the case cannot be reopened. If there is no agreement, a workers' compensation judge decides and issues a Findings and Award. Every settlement goes to a judge for review. The settlements page covers the choice in detail.

Questions people ask

Richard Vaughn CPCU, ARM, AIS

Richard Vaughn spent 35 years in commercial property and casualty insurance, most of it in workers' compensation: running a self-insured group, auditing premiums, and implementing claims systems for carriers and third-party administrators. He is not an attorney. dickvaughn.com