Workers’ compensation in Indiana is a no-fault system that pays for your medical treatment and replaces part of your lost wages when you’re hurt on the job, without requiring you to prove your employer did anything wrong. In exchange, you generally cannot sue your employer in court for the injury. Nearly every Indiana employer must carry coverage, benefits equal 66⅔% of your average weekly wage up to a statutory cap, and you have a tight 30-day window to report the injury and a two-year window to file a disputed claim.
Who Is Covered
Indiana requires every employer, regardless of size, to carry workers’ compensation insurance or qualify as self-insured through the Worker’s Compensation Board. A business with one employee has the same obligation as one with a thousand. The Act covers personal injury or death by accident that arises out of and in the course of employment, and the injured worker carries the burden of proof.1Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 22-3-2-2 – Mandatory Compliance; Burden of Proof; Exemptions
Several categories of workers fall outside the system:
- Farm and agricultural employees
- Household and domestic workers
- Casual laborers hired for tasks outside the employer’s regular trade or business2Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 22-3-2-9 – Exempt Employees; Waiver
- Railroad employees in train service, who fall under separate federal law
- Municipal firefighters and police officers who belong to a pension fund, although a city council can choose to buy medical coverage for them
Independent contractors are also outside the system, and this is where fights most often start. If your employer calls you a contractor but controls your schedule, your tools, and how you do the work, you may actually be an employee entitled to benefits. The test turns on whether you are economically dependent on the employer or genuinely running your own business.
Report the Injury Within 30 Days
You must give your employer written notice of a workplace injury within 30 days. If you miss that window and your employer had no other way of knowing about the injury, no compensation can be paid until the date you finally give notice.3Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 22-3-3-1 – Notice of Injury; Time
Report every injury the same day it happens, even one that feels minor. Back strains and repetitive-use injuries often look manageable at first and get worse over weeks, and a late report hands the insurer an easy reason to deny you. Keep your own written record of the date, the time, the exact location, what you were doing, who saw it, and which doctor treated you. If the claim is later disputed, those notes become your best evidence.
Who Picks Your Doctor
Indiana is an employer-choice state for medical care. After an injury and until any permanent impairment is determined, your employer selects and pays for the attending physician and for related services and products that the physician or the Board deems necessary.4Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 22-3-3-4 – Medical Treatment Pending Adjudication of Impairment If treatment requires you to travel outside the county where you work, the employer pays reasonable travel, food, and lodging costs and reimburses lost wages for the trip.
You can see a different doctor only in limited situations. In an emergency, or if your employer fails to provide a physician, the reasonable cost of outside treatment can be charged to the employer with the Board’s approval. Refusing the treatment your employer offers can suspend your benefits until you stop refusing.
How Much You Get Paid While You’re Off Work
If the injury keeps you from working, temporary total disability benefits replace 66⅔% of your average weekly wage, subject to a statutory cap. For injuries occurring on or after July 1, 2026, the maximum is $1,316 per week and the minimum is $75 per week. Your benefit cannot exceed what you were earning before the injury, so lower-wage workers may receive less than the formula alone would suggest.5Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 22-3-3-22 – Average Weekly Wages; Computation
Payments do not start on day one. There is a seven-day waiting period, and compensation begins on the eighth day of disability. If your disability lasts longer than 21 days, you also get paid retroactively for those first seven days. The first installment is due 14 days after disability begins, and the employer or insurer must file a report of payment with the Board and give you a compensation agreement at that time.6Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 22-3-3-7 – Temporary Disability Benefits; Installment Payments; Termination; Overpayment
Once benefits start, the employer cannot cut them off at will. The statute lists specific grounds for stopping payments, including your return to work, a physician’s release, or your refusal of suitable work.
Benefits for Lasting Injuries
When an injury leaves a permanent limitation after you reach maximum medical improvement, you may qualify for permanent partial impairment benefits. Indiana uses a degree-based schedule to assign a value to the loss of function in specific body parts, with fixed numbers of weeks of compensation for scheduled losses and proportional awards for partial loss of use. For impairments that don’t fit the schedule, the Board can award compensation up to 500 weeks based on the degree of permanent impairment.7Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 22-3-3-10 – Compensation for Permanent Partial Impairment
If the Injury Is Fatal
If a workplace injury causes death within 500 weeks, the worker’s dependents receive weekly payments equal to 66⅔% of the deceased’s average weekly wage, subject to the same caps that apply to disability benefits. Combined with anything the worker received before death, the total cannot exceed 500 weeks. Eligibility depends on the relationship between the deceased and the dependent, and the statute treats total and partial dependents differently.8Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 22-3-3-17 – Death Benefits
What to Do if the Claim Is Denied
When the employer or insurer denies your claim or you disagree about what you’re owed, you file an Application for Adjustment of Claim using Form 29109, submitted to the Worker’s Compensation Board electronically or by mail.9Indiana Department of Workforce Development. Application for Adjustment of Claim The Board assigns a cause number that tracks your case from that point on.
If the insurer denies liability or cannot determine liability, it must notify you and the Board in writing within 30 days of learning about the injury. The Board can grant up to 30 additional days, or longer if the insurer shows extraordinary circumstances.6Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 22-3-3-7 – Temporary Disability Benefits; Installment Payments; Termination; Overpayment If 60 days pass with no decision and no approved extension, the insurer is on weak ground.
A contested claim first goes before a single hearing member of the Board, who reviews evidence, hears testimony, and issues an award. Either side has 30 days to ask the full Board to review that decision. The full Board can re-examine the evidence or hold a new hearing and then issues its own award with written findings.10Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 22-3-4-7 – Review by Full Board
A full Board award is final on all questions of fact. The only further appeal goes to the Indiana Court of Appeals within 30 days and is limited to errors of law.11Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 22-3-4-8 – Disputes; Awards; Appeals The appellate court will not re-weigh medical evidence or second-guess witness credibility, so losing on the facts at the full Board rarely gets reversed.
The Two-Year Deadline
You must file a claim with the Worker’s Compensation Board within two years of the accident, or within two years of the worker’s death if the injury proves fatal. Miss it and your right to compensation is permanently barred.12Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 22-3-3-3 – Limitation of Actions; Radiation
One important exception: if the employer or insurer has already been paying temporary disability benefits, the two-year clock starts not from the accident but from the last date temporary total or temporary partial disability compensation was paid. For injuries caused by radiation exposure, the deadline runs two years from when you knew or reasonably should have known about the injury and its connection to your job. Many workers assume their claim is dead two years after the accident when payments may have quietly extended the window.
If Your Employer Has No Insurance
An Indiana employer that fails to carry coverage or qualify as self-insured commits a Class A infraction. The Board can impose a civil penalty of $50 per employee per day and order the employer to stop doing business in the state until it shows proof of insurance. If the employer provides proof within 20 days of a noncompliance notice, the Board waives the daily penalty. Otherwise, the employer can be publicly listed as noncompliant on the Board’s website.
Beyond those fines, the Board can order an uninsured employer to pay up to double the compensation the Act would otherwise provide, plus your medical expenses and reasonable attorney fees. If you work for a small business and suspect there’s no coverage, you can verify an employer’s insurance status through the Worker’s Compensation Board.13Worker’s Compensation Board of Indiana. Who Is Eligible