01 — Florida
Workers’ compensation in Florida
Florida ties its maximum weekly workers’ compensation benefit directly to the statewide average weekly wage, so the cap moves every January. Temporary total disability pays two-thirds of pre-injury wages, and the first week is not payable unless the disability runs past twenty-one days.
The twenty-one day rule is the detail that catches employers out. The seven-day waiting period is not a permanent exclusion — cross twenty-one days of disability and the first week becomes payable retroactively. A claim that looked like a short absence at day ten becomes a materially larger claim at day twenty-two, which is precisely the window where return-to-work effort pays for itself.
Because the maximum is set at one hundred percent of the statewide average weekly wage under statute, it moves every year without any legislative action, and it moves with the state’s wage growth rather than with anything happening in workers’ compensation. Multi-year cost projections built on a static cap will drift.
Florida’s construction, distribution and hospitality payroll draws heavy carrier scrutiny, and coverage compliance is enforced against contractors for their subcontractors. For anyone running crews through subcontractors here, certificate tracking is not administrative hygiene — it is the difference between a clean audit and a large one.
Staffing and warehousing operations in the state face the same classification questions as elsewhere, with the added complication that payroll frequently crosses into construction classifications that price very differently.
02 — Statutory rules
What Florida law sets
Every figure below was read off the issuing agency or the statute itself, with the date it was read. Rules we have not verified are absent rather than estimated.
| Rule | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Waiting period | 7 daysThe first seven days are not payable unless disability exceeds 21 days as determined by the authorized doctor. | Florida Department of Financial Services, Division of Workers’ Compensation — Benefits available to injured workersRead 2026-08-26 |
| Benefit basis | Sixty-six and two-thirds percent of regular wages at the time of injury | Florida Department of Financial Services, Division of Workers’ Compensation — Benefits available to injured workersRead 2026-08-26 |
| Statutory maximum | $1,358.00 per weekEffective 2026-01-01; minimum $20. Under §440.12(2), Fla. Stat. the maximum equals 100 percent of the statewide average weekly wage. | Florida Department of Financial Services, Division of Workers’ Compensation — Maximum Compensation Rate TableRead 2026-08-26 |
03 — What we do here
Placement and program work in Florida
Workers’ compensation for staffing agencies
Staffing agencies are the hardest workers’ compensation risk to place in America.
PEO placement and exit
A professional employer organization becomes a co-employer of your workforce, handling payroll, benefits and workers’ compensation under its own master policy.
Experience modification review
An experience modification is a multiplier applied to workers’ compensation premium, calculated by a rating bureau from three years of payroll and losses.
Class code and payroll audit
Workers’ compensation premium is payroll multiplied by a rate set for each classification code.
Industries placed in Florida: Staffing Agencies, Transportation and Trucking, Warehousing and Storage, Food Manufacturing, Wholesale Distribution, Construction.
04 — Other states
Where else we write
- California 6 sourced
- Texas 4 sourced
- Georgia 3 sourced
- North Carolina 1 sourced
- Pennsylvania 2 sourced
- Arizona 1 sourced
- Nevada 1 sourced
- Illinois 1 sourced
- Ohio 4 sourced