When a breadwinner gets hurt on the job, the consequences ripple through a family’s routines and budget. When a worker dies after a work accident or occupational disease, the stakes feel unbearable. Florida’s workers’ compensation system exists to take some of that weight off families, but navigating it rarely feels simple. Deadlines are short. Definitions can be technical. And insurance carriers scrutinize every detail. After years helping Central Florida workers and their families, I can say the difference between a smooth claim and a drawn-out fight usually comes down to information, documentation, and steady advocacy.
This guide focuses on two pillars of Florida workers’ comp for Orlando families: death benefits and wage loss. I will walk through eligibility, benefit amounts, common pitfalls, and practical steps. Along the way, I will highlight where a workers compensation lawyer can add value, and where families can help themselves with early, organized action.
What Florida Workers’ Compensation Covers in Plain Terms
Florida’s workers’ comp system is no-fault. If an injury or death arises out of and in the course of employment, the system pays defined benefits. You do not need to prove the employer was negligent. In exchange, you generally cannot sue the employer. Benefits include medical care for injuries that are work-related, disability checks while you recover or if you cannot return to your old job, and, in fatal cases, death benefits for dependents and funeral costs.
The system moves quickly. You have 30 days to report an injury to your employer in most cases. For deaths, the employer or carrier often triggers a claim automatically, but families should not assume that every step will be handled. Key proofs still matter. If you feel lost in the acronyms and forms, that feeling is normal. An experienced workers compensation attorney spends a lot of time translating the system and chasing down records so families can focus on healing and planning.
Death Benefits: Who Qualifies and How Much Is Available
Florida law provides death benefits when an employee dies because of a work accident or disease, and the death occurs within one year of the accident, or within five years if there was continuous disability and the death results from the accident. Occupational disease cases, like long-term exposure leading to deadly illnesses, frequently run into disputes about causation. A workers compensation lawyer familiar with medical records, industrial hygiene, and expert testimony can be critical in these cases.
Eligible survivors include a surviving spouse, children, and in some circumstances other dependents such as parents or siblings who relied on the worker for support. The relationship and dependency status determine who gets paid, and in what share.
The benefits fall into three buckets:
- Funeral expenses, up to a statutory cap. In recent years that cap has typically been $7,500. It covers burial or cremation, but keep receipts and contracts. Families often sign funeral agreements before insurance makes a determination, and carriers require proof before paying. Weekly compensation to dependents, calculated as a percentage of the worker’s average weekly wage. Total death benefits are capped, both per week and overall, by statute. In practice, benefits for dependents are often 66 2/3 percent of the average weekly wage, allocated among eligible survivors, with an overall maximum aggregate. Educational benefits for a surviving spouse. Florida offers tuition for job training or education, often through the state college system, if the spouse needs to reenter the workforce or upskill after the loss.
The math hinges on the average weekly wage, commonly referred to as AWW. The AWW is usually based on the 13 weeks of pay before the accident, including regular wages and certain bonuses or overtime if they were regular and recurring. Seasonal or irregular work complicates the calculation. I have seen large corrections after carriers initially ignored incentive pay or counted only base pay. Even a small change in AWW can shift lifetime benefits by thousands of dollars. This is one of those areas where a careful review pays off.
A snapshot from practice
A warehouse worker in Orlando passed away after a fall from a loading dock. He had two jobs: full-time at the warehouse and weekend shifts at a landscaping company. The carrier initially calculated AWW using only the warehouse income. Florida law can allow wages from concurrent employment to be included if both jobs are “covered” employment. After we gathered pay stubs, tax records, and confirmation that the landscaping employer had workers’ comp coverage, the AWW increased by 23 percent. That adjustment meaningfully changed the weekly dependency benefits for the surviving spouse and two minor children.
Eligibility for Dependents: Details That Change Outcomes
Carriers will evaluate a spouse’s marital status, whether there was a legal separation, and whether the spouse was living with or supported by the worker at the time of death. Children typically qualify if they are under 18, or up to 22 if enrolled full-time in school. Dependents with disabilities may qualify regardless of age if the disability existed at the time of the worker’s death.
Edge cases come up more often than you might think. A child living with a former spouse in another state may still be eligible. An adult child in college might fall out of eligibility for a semester if their status drops below full-time. A fiancé, no matter how interdependent the relationship, will not qualify if there was no valid marriage under Florida law. When families include stepchildren, adopted children, or children born out of wedlock, documentation makes the difference: birth certificates, adoption decrees, proof of support, and school enrollment records.
If there are multiple dependents, the law allocates shares. Negotiating the shares can be straightforward in a typical spouse-with-minor-children case. It can also turn contentious when there are competing claims between a current spouse and children from prior relationships. A neutral judge of compensation claims can resolve disputes, but resolution takes time. The best workers comp law firm teams will push for interim payments to the undisputed beneficiaries while the rest gets sorted out.
Proving Work-Relatedness in Fatal Claims
Accidents at the workplace are rarely disputed as work-related. The harder cases involve heart attacks, strokes, or illnesses with multiple causes. Florida requires a clear causal connection to employment, supported by medical evidence. For example, a fatal cardiac event might be compensable if the worker’s job involved unusual strain or exposure, and a physician can testify to the connection within a reasonable degree of medical certainty.
For occupational diseases such as silicosis, asbestosis, or certain cancers linked to chemical exposure, timing and exposure records are everything. Families often do not have these records at home, and employers may not keep them indefinitely. An experienced workers compensation lawyer will seek safety logs, OSHA records, industrial hygiene reports, and co-worker statements. They may also consult with occupational medicine specialists to build the timeline. The insurer will often engage their own experts. Anticipating the defense arguments early shortens the road to benefits.
Wage Loss for the Injured Worker: TTD, TPD, and Impairment Benefits
When an injury does not lead to death but does keep a worker off the job, Florida offers wage replacement benefits that fall into several categories.
Temporary total disability, or TTD, pays when the authorized doctor takes you completely out of work. Temporary partial disability, or TPD, pays if you can work with restrictions but earn less than 80 percent of your AWW. These benefits usually pay at 66 2/3 percent of the pre-injury average weekly wage, subject to statewide maximums that change annually. They are designed to bridge the gap during healing, up to a durational limit, often 104 weeks under recent case law and statutory amendments. The details change over time, and courts have revised interpretations, so checking current limits is wise.
After you reach maximum medical improvement, the doctor assigns an impairment rating. Impairment income benefits are then payable based on that percentage and the AWW. These are not lifetime benefits. They are meant to compensate for permanent loss of function but do not require proof that you cannot find work. If the injury permanently prevents suitable employment, you may qualify for permanent total disability, which can pay longer, sometimes to age 75 in Florida, with offsets for Social Security in certain cases.
Here is where injured workers often get tripped up:
- Doctors need to be authorized by the carrier. Seeing your own doctor without authorization can risk nonpayment, unless it is a bona fide emergency. TPD requires proof of earnings, or proof of a good-faith job search if you have no earnings. If your employer will not provide light duty, keep copies of applications, emails, and job search logs. I tell clients to treat the job search like a second job, track it daily, and keep screenshots. Independent medical exams can change the course of a claim. Carriers use them to attempt to end TTD early or reduce impairment ratings. A workers compensation attorney near me who knows the local IME physicians often has a sense of which opinions tend to hold up with judges, and which do not.
Calculating Average Weekly Wage: The Right Numbers, The Right Period
The AWW drives everything, from wage loss checks to death benefits. In Orlando’s service-heavy economy, variable schedules and tip income are common. A bartender’s AWW that omits declared tips will underpay benefits. A construction worker who had a slow winter may need a different calculation method than the standard 13-week lookback.
The law allows alternatives when the 13-week period does not reflect a fair average. We have used daily rates multiplied by the typical number of workdays, or wages of a similarly situated employee. For gig or rideshare workers who truly are employees under the law, trip logs and 1099s become vital. For others, independent contractor status raises a threshold question about coverage. It is not uncommon to see misclassification. A good workers comp attorney will analyze the economic realities test and the statutory exemptions, and in the right cases, press for coverage despite the label.
In every case, gather pay stubs, direct deposit records, tax returns, and employer payroll summaries early. If the carrier lowballs the AWW, you will have the math ready.
Timeframes That Matter, and How Delays Hurt
Florida’s deadlines are unforgiving. You must report an injury within 30 days. Survivors should notify the employer and carrier as soon as possible after a death. The statute of limitations for filing petitions typically runs two years from the date of injury or death, with exceptions, but waiting invites lost evidence and missing witnesses.
Treatment timelines also matter. If a doctor recommends a specialist or a diagnostic test, the carrier must authorize it. If they delay, request a state-mandated conference or file a petition. Document every phone call and email. In wage loss cases, a gap in doctor notes or a missing work status slip can halt TTD or TPD checks. In death cases, the absence of a death certificate or medical causation report slows payment to dependents. The best results come from steady, polite persistence, supported by paperwork.
How Orlando Employers and Insurers Typically Respond
Central Florida employers range from large theme park operators to small construction firms. Large employers usually have established reporting channels and risk managers. Smaller employers sometimes delay reporting or push back on coverage. When an employer tells an injured worker to use personal health insurance instead of filing a workers’ comp claim, that is a red flag. Florida law requires the employer to report injuries. A workers comp law firm can step in to force proper reporting and preserve your rights.
Carriers, for their part, tend to scrutinize three things: was the incident truly work-related, what is the correct AWW, and what medical restrictions apply. They will often request recorded statements early, sometimes before you understand the implications. You are not required to guess at medical diagnoses or speculate about old injuries. Stick to known facts, and ask to reschedule if you need time to gather information or Workers comp attorney to speak with a work injury lawyer.
Settlements: When They Make Sense, and When to Wait
Families sometimes prefer the certainty of a lump sum, especially after a death. Settlements can close claims for a defined amount, sometimes with a Medicare set-aside if future medicals are being resolved. For dependency benefits, settlements require court approval to protect minors’ interests. The judge will look at actuarial projections, attorney fees, and allocations to children.
There is no one-size approach. I have advised survivors to accept a structured settlement when they needed predictable monthly income tied to tuition and mortgage payments. In other cases, we declined an early offer because the carrier’s exposure would grow after we corrected the AWW and secured stronger medical causation opinions. A seasoned workers comp attorney weighs medical risk, legal risk, and family needs, not just the headline number.
Coordinating Workers’ Comp With Other Benefits
Workers’ comp does not exist in a vacuum. Families may also have life insurance, accidental death policies, Social Security survivors benefits, or wrongful death claims against third parties, like a negligent driver or an equipment manufacturer. Workers’ comp is the exclusive remedy against the employer in most cases, but third-party claims remain possible. Those claims affect liens and offsets. For example, a comp carrier may assert a lien on any third-party recovery, subject to formulas. Coordinating these pieces prevents double-recovery errors that delay payment. A work accident attorney who handles both comp and third-party claims, or who coordinates with a personal injury team, can prevent avoidable surprises.
What Families Can Do in the First 30 Days After a Fatal Work Accident
The first month sets the tone. Emotions will be high and details can slip. Here is a short, practical checklist that I share with Orlando families in those moments:
- Notify the employer and request the workers’ comp carrier information. Ask for the claim number as soon as it exists. Collect documents: death certificate, autopsy report if any, pay records for the last year, tax returns, and any concurrent employment records. Identify all dependents and gather proof of relationship and support, including marriage certificates, birth certificates, adoption papers, and school enrollment. Keep receipts: funeral expenses, travel for meetings, and any out-of-pocket medical costs tied to the final illness or injury. Speak with an experienced workers compensation lawyer before giving recorded statements or signing releases, especially in cases with disputed causation.
The Role of a Lawyer, and How to Choose the Right One
You do not need a lawyer to file a claim. Many straightforward injuries resolve with timely treatment and appropriate wage replacement. Death claims and long-term disability cases are rarely straightforward. The stakes and complexity justify guidance from an experienced workers compensation lawyer who knows the Orlando judges, the local defense firms, and the medical experts who carry weight.
When families search for a workers compensation lawyer near me or workers comp attorney near me, they should look beyond advertising. Ask how many death benefit cases the firm has handled in the last few years. Request examples of AWW disputes they resolved. Inquire whether they manage both comp and related third-party claims in-house. A workers compensation law firm with a dedicated team can move faster on records, meet short deadlines, and keep you informed without asking you to chase paperwork.
In free consultations, pay attention to whether the attorney explains the trade-offs clearly. Do they walk you through the risks of litigation versus settlement in your specific case, or do they lean on generic assurances? The best workers compensation attorney will set expectations, not just promise outcomes.
Avoidable Pitfalls That Derail Good Claims
Several recurring mistakes show up in both death and wage loss cases:
- Incomplete AWW documentation. Missing pay stubs or ignoring concurrent employment depresses benefits. Fixing it later takes longer than getting it right early. Gaps in medical proof. In non-obvious causation cases, a single medical note that uses uncertain language can fuel a denial. Clear, consistent documentation wins the day. Missed deadlines or undone forms. Orlando carriers still rely on formal notices. If you move or change phone numbers, tell the carrier and your attorney in writing. Overbroad releases. Insurers sometimes present broad medical authorizations that reach unrelated history. A work accident lawyer can narrow the scope to what is legitimately relevant. Silence during light duty. If your employer offers light duty and you cannot do it, tell the doctor and get restrictions updated. Simply failing to show up invites suspension of benefits.
Each of these is solvable with early attention. Families that keep a running folder, with dates and copies, tend to see smoother claims.
How Wage Loss Benefits End or Change
Workers often ask how long wage loss checks will last. Temporary benefits end when the doctor returns you to full duty, when you reach maximum medical improvement, or when you hit the statutory duration limit. Impairment income benefits follow, calculated based on the rating. If you cannot secure suitable work, permanent total disability may be on the table, but carriers resist those designations, often pushing vocational assessments and labor market surveys to argue that jobs exist for you.
For survivors receiving death benefits, payments continue according to statute, with special rules for remarriage of a spouse and for children aging out or completing schooling. If a spouse remarries, there may be a lump sum adjustment rather than ongoing weekly checks. For children, benefits usually end when they reach the age threshold or complete full-time schooling, unless disability qualifies them for ongoing support.
Costs, Fees, and Practical Expectations
Most workers comp lawyers in Florida work on a contingency basis, with fees controlled by statute and subject to judicial approval. In death claims involving minors, judges scrutinize fees to protect children’s interests. Reputable firms explain their fee structure up front and put it in writing. Expenses for experts and records can be advanced by the firm and repaid from the recovery, or occasionally paid by the carrier when you prevail on disputed issues.
Turnaround times vary. A straightforward wage loss dispute on AWW might resolve in a few weeks with the right documentation. A contested death claim with complex medical questions can take months, sometimes longer, especially if multiple hearings or depositions are required. The insurance carrier’s willingness to engage often changes once you present a credible case with solid records and expert support.
Local Context: Orlando’s Workforce and Risks
Central Florida’s economy revolves around hospitality, logistics, healthcare, and construction. Each sector has its own injury patterns. Falls from heights and machinery incidents dominate construction claims. Back and shoulder injuries show up in hotel housekeeping. Warehouse work brings forklift accidents and repetitive strain. Healthcare involves needle sticks, lifting injuries, and patient-related violence. Fatal claims often arise from falls, vehicle incidents in delivery roles, and heat exposure during summer months. Knowing the typical hazards helps target the right evidence, like heat indexes on the day of a collapse or the maintenance logs on a scissor lift.
For families and injured workers in these industries, a local workers comp law firm brings familiarity with employer practices, common carrier defenses, and the medical providers who routinely serve as treating doctors or IME physicians in the Orlando area. That local knowledge shortens the learning curve.
When to Reach Out for Help
If you are caring for a family after a fatal work accident, or if wage loss has stretched far longer than expected, do not wait to ask questions. A quick conversation with an experienced workers compensation lawyer can clarify the road ahead. If you have been searching for the best workers compensation lawyer or simply a trustworthy workers comp lawyer near me, focus on responsiveness, clarity, and a track record with cases like yours.
The law offers real benefits. Getting them requires careful steps, strong records, and sometimes a firm push. With the right support, Orlando families can secure the death benefits and wage loss compensation that the system promises, and move forward with steadier ground under their feet.