Greetings, I had a question last week about how to determine a claimant’s daily indemnity rate. Logic would say you simply divide the weekly benefit by 7, but not so. This one bothers me but it is what it is.
The Fla WC statute defines how an adjuster should divide the weekly indemnity rate to pay for a fractional week. Basically, it says divide the weekly benefit by the number of days the claimant normally worked in a week before the accident:
440.14(1) (g) If compensation is due for a fractional part of the week, the compensation for such fractional part shall be determined by dividing the weekly compensation rate by the number of days employed per week to compute the amount due for each day.
This would apply to all types of indemnity, including TTD, TPD, PTD and PTD supps. It does not give us great guidance if the claimant works inconsistently or sporadically. In those cases, we could look at the number of days worked total in the 13 weeks and divide by 13 to see if that creates a reasonable result.
Even on a consistent worker, the result can sometimes be a windfall for a claimant if the days they miss in the partial week are not their normal work-days. Meaning they could work the full week they would normally work, plus get a day or two of TPD.
Not my favorite statutory provision.
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Sincerely,
Morgan Indek | Managing Partner