Most California workers' compensation cases end in a settlement. There are two main types, and the difference between them affects your medical care, your money, and your relationship with your employer for years to come.
Stipulated Award ("Stips")
A Stipulation with Request for Award is an agreement on your permanent disability level. With stips:
- You receive your permanent disability paid out over time, at a set weekly rate.
- Future medical care for the injury generally stays open — the insurer keeps paying for related treatment.
- If your condition gets worse, you may be able to reopen the case within five years of the injury.
Stips are often better when you'll likely need ongoing treatment.
Compromise & Release (C&R)
A Compromise & Release is a one-time lump-sum settlement that usually closes the entire case:
- You get a single lump-sum payment.
- In most C&Rs, you take responsibility for your own future medical care (the case closes out medical too).
- The case is generally final — you usually can't reopen it later.
A C&R can make sense if you want to move on, you've changed jobs, or you'd rather control your own treatment — but you're trading away future medical coverage, so the number has to account for that.
How settlement value is built
Your settlement reflects your permanent disability rating, the cost of likely future medical care, any unpaid past benefits, and the strength of any disputes (work-relatedness, apportionment). Because the PD rating drives so much of this, the QME/AME report is usually the biggest single factor.
Before you sign
- Understand whether you're closing out future medical — this is the most common regret.
- Consider Medicare's interests if you're a beneficiary or close to eligibility (a "set-aside" may be required).
- A judge must approve the settlement, and unrepresented workers' settlements get extra scrutiny — but approval doesn't mean it was the best deal you could have gotten.
This is the highest-stakes decision in your claim, and it's permanent. It's the moment most workers are glad they had someone review the numbers.