Iowa Workers’ Comp Settlement Chart: Body Parts and Weekly Rates

Iowa’s workers’ compensation settlement chart has two parts that work together: a schedule assigning a fixed number of weeks of benefits to each body part, and a weekly benefit rate calculated from the injured worker’s pre-injury wages. Multiply the scheduled weeks by the impairment percentage, then by the weekly rate, and you have the gross value of a permanent partial disability settlement. Injuries not on the schedule, such as backs and necks, are measured against a 500-week maximum using an industrial disability analysis instead of a straight medical rating.¹

The Formula Behind Every Iowa Settlement

For any permanent partial disability (PPD) claim, the calculation is:

Scheduled weeks × impairment percentage × weekly PPD rate = gross settlement value.

The scheduled weeks come from the statutory chart below. The impairment percentage comes from a physician using the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, Fifth Edition, which Iowa Administrative Code § 876-2.4(85) treats as the presumptive value.² The weekly rate comes from the Iowa Division of Workers’ Compensation Ratebook based on the worker’s wages, filing status, and dependents.

Iowa Workers’ Comp Body Part Chart

For injuries occurring on or after July 1, 2017, Iowa assigns the following weeks of PPD benefits for a total (100%) loss of each body part:¹

Shoulder — 400 weeks
Arm — 250 weeks
Leg — 220 weeks
Hand — 190 weeks
Hearing loss, both ears — 175 weeks
Foot — 150 weeks
Permanent disfigurement of face or head — 150 weeks
Eye — 140 weeks
Thumb — 60 weeks
Hearing loss, one ear — 50 weeks
Great toe — 40 weeks
Index finger — 35 weeks
Middle finger — 30 weeks
Ring finger — 25 weeks
Little finger — 20 weeks
Any other toe — 15 weeks

A partial impairment gets the corresponding fraction. If a doctor rates a foot at 50% impaired, the benefit is 50% of 150 weeks, or 75 weeks of PPD.³

Back, Neck, and Other Injuries Not on the Chart

Injuries to body parts the statute doesn’t list — backs, necks, heads, internal organs — are treated as injuries to the “body as a whole” and valued against a maximum of 500 weeks. These claims are measured by “industrial disability” rather than pure medical impairment.¹

Industrial disability looks at the worker’s age, education, work experience, functional limitations, pre-injury and post-injury earnings, and ability to find new employment.¹ Two workers with the same herniated disc can end up with very different awards. A 55-year-old manual laborer without a college degree generally receives a higher industrial rating than a 30-year-old office worker with the identical medical finding.

One important limit: since 2017, workers who return to work at the same or higher wage are capped at their functional impairment rating rather than the broader industrial disability figure. If the employer later terminates the worker, the employee can petition for a fresh industrial disability assessment.⁴

Your Weekly Benefit Rate

The other half of the chart is your weekly rate. Iowa sets PPD benefits at 80% of “spendable earnings,” which is essentially take-home pay after estimated tax withholdings. Spendable earnings depend on the gross average weekly wage, filing status, and number of exemptions — one for the worker, one for a spouse, one for each dependent. Marital status and dependents lock in as of the date of injury.⁵⁶

For hourly workers, the average weekly wage is the total wages from the 13 consecutive calendar weeks before the injury, divided by 13.⁷ Some rules that change the number in practice:

Overtime and premium pay are excluded.⁷
Shift differentials are included.⁷
Irregular bonuses and expense reimbursements are excluded.⁵
Weeks that don’t reflect customary earnings — a plant shutdown, personal leave — are replaced with the nearest prior representative week.⁷
Time missed for vacation or illness is credited at what the worker would have earned.⁶

Salaried workers use different conversions: monthly pay × 12 ÷ 52, semimonthly × 24 ÷ 52, biweekly ÷ 2.⁷

Maximum and Minimum Rates for 2025–2026

For injuries occurring between July 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026:⁸

PPD maximum: $2,162.00 per week
TTD, healing period, PTD, and death benefits maximum: $2,350.00 per week
PPD, PTD, and death benefits minimum: $411.00 per week
TTD and healing period minimum: the lower of $411.00 or the worker’s actual spendable earnings

The statewide average weekly wage for the same period is $1,174.98.⁸ The Ratebook is updated annually and covers injuries from July 1 through June 30 of the following year.⁵

Putting the Two Tables Together

A worker with a 10% impairment rating to an arm and a PPD rate of $558.54 per week receives 10% of 250 weeks (25 weeks) × $558.54, or $13,963.50.⁹

A worker with a 20% industrial disability rating for a back injury at the same rate receives 20% of 500 weeks (100 weeks) × $558.54, or $55,854.⁹

Healing period weeks paid during recovery are not deducted from the PPD weeks owed on an unscheduled injury. A worker who received 30 weeks of healing period benefits and is later rated at 20% industrial disability still gets the full 100 weeks of PPD.⁹

Lump-Sum Payment and the Two Kinds of Settlement

Weekly PPD payments can be converted into a single lump sum through a commutation, which requires consent from both sides and approval by the Workers’ Compensation Commissioner. Since March 25, 2023, workers no longer need to show a minimum number of unaccrued weeks or a specific financial need when both sides are represented by counsel; in that situation, the commutation is presumed to be in the worker’s best interest.¹⁰

Commuted amounts are discounted to present value at Iowa’s statutory judgment interest rate unless the carrier waives the discount, so the lump sum is usually somewhat less than the raw total of remaining weekly payments.¹⁰

Before signing anything, know which of Iowa’s two settlement types you have under Iowa Code § 85.35. An agreement for settlement establishes liability and current benefits but leaves the door open: you can bring a review-reopening proceeding within three years of the last weekly payment if your condition worsens.¹¹¹² A compromise settlement is a full and final disposition; once approved and paid, no future claim or reopening is available on that injury.¹³ Either type can preserve medical benefits under § 85.27 for a specified time if the parties agree.

What Changed in 2017

House File 518 rewrote several rules that still shape settlement values today. The biggest change was reclassifying shoulders from unscheduled injuries into the schedule at 400 weeks. Before the reform, a shoulder could be evaluated under the broader industrial disability framework and sometimes support permanent total disability; today it is compensated on a functional impairment rating applied to the 400-week schedule.⁴

The reform also capped unscheduled awards for workers offered work at the same or greater wage, and it directs industrial disability determinations to account for the number of years the worker was reasonably expected to keep working at the time of injury. For all scheduled injuries after the reform, impairment must be determined solely under the AMA Guides, and PPD benefits do not start until the worker reaches maximum medical improvement.⁴

1
Iowa Division of Workers’ Compensation. Workers’ Compensation Benefits
2
LexisNexis. AMA Guides State by State
3
Hedberg Law. Workers’ Comp Benefits Per Injured Body Part in Iowa
4
Iowa AFL-CIO. 2017 Workers’ Compensation Booklet
5
Iowa Division of Workers’ Compensation. Workers’ Compensation Rates
6
NWCDN. Calculating the Rate of Compensation Tips Tricks and Traps
7
Iowa Legislature. Iowa Code § 85.36
8
Iowa Division of Workers’ Compensation. Current Rate Information
9
Evans-Dixon. Iowa Rate Chart 2022
10
Peddicord Lillis. Changes to Iowa Administrative Code Impacting Full Commutations in Workers’ Compensation Cases
11
Iowa Legislature. Iowa Code § 85.35
12
Cornell Law Institute. Iowa Admin Code Rule 876-6.1
13
Iowa Division of Workers’ Compensation. Compromise Settlement Information