South Carolina Workers’ Compensation: Deadlines and Benefits

If you’re hurt on the job in South Carolina, workers’ compensation pays your medical bills and roughly two-thirds of your wages while you recover, no matter who caused the accident, as long as your employer was required to carry coverage. In exchange, you generally can’t sue your employer for negligence. For accidents on or after January 1, 2026, weekly wage benefits are capped at $1,189.94.¹ Two deadlines drive everything else: 90 days to tell your employer, two years to file with the state.

Which Employers Have to Carry Coverage

Any business that regularly has four or more people working in it must carry workers’ compensation insurance.² Part-time workers and family members count toward that four. A separate trigger applies too: an annual payroll of $3,000 or more in the prior calendar year requires coverage regardless of headcount.³

Some workers sit outside the system:

Agricultural employees
Casual employees whose work is both occasional and outside the employer’s usual business
Railroad and railway express workers, who are covered by federal law
State and county fair association employees
Federal employees, covered by the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act

Sole proprietors and partners aren’t automatically covered but can opt in through their insurer.⁴

If You’ve Been Called an Independent Contractor

True independent contractors don’t get workers’ compensation. But employers sometimes label workers as contractors to duck coverage, and the label doesn’t control. The Commission looks at how much control the business has over your work: who sets your schedule, provides tools, reimburses expenses, and whether the relationship is ongoing or project-based. No single factor decides it. If you were called a contractor but the arrangement looked like employment, file anyway. The Commission can reclassify you.

The Two Deadlines That Can End Your Claim

Notify your employer within 90 days of the accident. The statute says to give notice “as soon as practicable,” so do it in writing the same day if you can.⁵ Late notice is one of the easiest reasons for an insurer to deny a claim. There are exceptions when the employer already knew about the accident or you had a legitimate reason for the delay, but don’t count on them.

Then file a formal claim with the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission within two years of the accident, or within two years of the date of death for a fatal injury.⁶ After that, the right to compensation is gone even if you reported the injury on day one.

For repetitive trauma like carpal tunnel, the 90-day clock starts when you knew or reasonably should have known the condition was work-related, not from your first symptom.⁵

What You’re Entitled To

Medical Treatment

The insurer must pay for all reasonable and necessary care tied to the injury: doctor visits, surgery, hospital stays, prescriptions, prosthetics, and other necessary devices. The surprise for most injured workers is that your employer picks the doctor, not you.⁷ Refusing treatment from that physician can suspend your benefits. You can ask the Commission to order a change “for good cause,” but personal preference won’t be enough.

Wage Replacement While You Recover

If you can’t work at all during recovery, temporary total disability pays two-thirds of your average weekly wage.⁸ The floor is $75 per week unless your average wage was lower. The ceiling for injuries on or after January 1, 2026, is $1,189.94 per week.¹

You get nothing for the first seven calendar days out of work. If the disability runs longer than 14 days, the insurer pays retroactively to the date of the accident.⁹ So a 10-day absence gets you paid for three days; a 15-day absence gets you paid for all of it.

Permanent Disability

Once you reach maximum medical improvement, meaning your condition has stabilized and further treatment won’t produce significant gains, a physician assigns an impairment rating. Compensation then comes off a statutory schedule: a fixed number of weeks at two-thirds of your average weekly wage, prorated by your rating.¹⁰ Some representative values:

Thumb: 65 weeks
Index finger: 40 weeks
Hand: 185 weeks
Arm: 220 weeks
Shoulder: 300 weeks
Foot: 140 weeks
Leg: 195 weeks
Eye: 140 weeks
Hearing (both ears): 165 weeks

Back injuries are also on the schedule, covering up to 300 weeks. Permanent total disability, reserved for catastrophic losses such as both hands, both feet, both eyes, or any combination of two, pays at the total disability rate for the full statutory period.⁸

Death Benefits

If the accident is fatal, dependents receive two-thirds of the deceased worker’s average weekly wage for up to 500 weeks from the date of injury, subject to the same $75 floor and state maximum. Burial expenses are covered up to $12,000.¹¹ Children between 19 and 23 enrolled full-time in an accredited school keep receiving benefits, and a dependent child unable to support themselves receives benefits for the full 500 weeks regardless of age.

How to File

The claim form is Form 50, the Employee’s Notice of Claim. You can submit it through the Commission’s website or by mail. There’s no fee to file a notice of claim; a $25 fee applies only if you’re also requesting a hearing on the same form.¹²

Form 50 asks for:

The date and location of the injury
How it happened and which body parts were affected
Your weekly wages at the time of injury
Your current medical treatment status
Your employer’s name and contact information

Your employer separately files Form 12-A, the First Report of Injury or Illness, with the Commission and their insurer. Confirm they actually did it. Some don’t, and that stalls everything. Once the Commission processes your Form 50, you’ll get a file number that tracks all future correspondence.¹³

If Your Claim Is Denied

Request a hearing by checking the hearing box on Form 50 and paying the $25 fee.¹² A single Commissioner hears testimony from both sides and issues a written decision.

If you lose there, file Form 30 (Request for Commission Review) within 14 days of receiving the order, with a $150 filing fee. A panel of Commissioners reviews the decision. Miss the 14-day deadline and the original ruling stands.¹⁴ Further review is available through the South Carolina courts.

If Your Employer Doesn’t Have Insurance

If your employer was required to carry coverage and didn’t, you still have options. Uninsured employers face fines and penalties from the Commission, and you can file your claim with the Commission’s Uninsured Employers Fund. You may also have the right to sue your employer directly in civil court, because the no-fault trade-off that shields employers from lawsuits only holds when they maintain insurance. Report an uninsured employer to the Commission’s Coverage and Compliance Division.

Protection Against Retaliation

Your employer cannot fire or demote you for filing a workers’ compensation claim, testifying in a proceeding, or being about to testify.¹⁵ If they do, you can bring a civil action for lost wages and reinstatement. The burden is on you to show the adverse action was motivated by your claim rather than a legitimate business reason, so document everything: keep copies of your filings, note the timing of any discipline or termination, and preserve communications that suggest your claim was a factor.

Hiring an Attorney

You can hire an attorney for your workers’ compensation case. Any fee arrangement must be approved by the Commission before the attorney is paid, and fees come out of your award or settlement rather than as a separate charge. Get the fee agreement in writing before work begins, and make sure you know exactly what percentage will be deducted from your recovery.

1
South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission. Compensation Rates
2
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 42-1-360 – Exemption of Casual Employees and Certain Other Employments
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South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission. Coverage and Compliance FAQs
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South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission. Employer FAQs
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South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 42-15 – Notice of Accident, Filing of Claims, Medical Attention and Examination
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South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission. Injured Worker FAQs
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South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 42-15-60 – Time Period During Which Employer Shall Furnish Medical Treatment and Supplies
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South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 42-9-10 – Amount of Compensation for Total Disability, What Constitutes Total Disability
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South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 42-9 – Compensation and Payment
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South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 42-9-30 – Schedule of Period of Disability and Compensation
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South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 42-9-290 – Amount of Compensation for Death of Employee Due to Accident
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South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission. Employee’s Notice of Claim and/or Request for Hearing
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South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission. Forms
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South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission. Single Commissioner Decision and Order
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South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 41-1-80 – Prohibition Against Discharge or Demotion of Employee for Filing Workers Compensation Claim