To bring a Colorado workers’ compensation claim, tell your employer in writing within four working days of the injury, then file a Worker’s Claim for Compensation (Form WC 15) with the state Division of Workers’ Compensation within two years. The system is no-fault: you don’t have to prove your employer did anything wrong, and in exchange you can’t sue them for the injury. What you get is medical treatment and roughly two-thirds of your average weekly wage while you’re out, plus additional money if the injury leaves lasting impairment.
Are You Covered
If you get paid for work in Colorado, the law presumes you’re an employee entitled to workers’ compensation. Full-time, part-time, seasonal, and family members working in a family business are all included, as are state and local government workers and volunteer firefighters and rescue team members.1Department of Labor & Employment. Employers2FindLaw. Colorado Code 8-40-202 – Employee
A few workers fall outside the system. Domestic workers such as nannies are exempt if they work fewer than 40 hours and fewer than five days per week. Casual farm, ranch, and maintenance labor is exempt if the worker earns no more than $2,000 per year from that employer. Independent contractors are excluded, but the label on your paperwork doesn’t decide the question. If your employer controls when, where, and how you do the job, you’re likely an employee regardless of what your agreement says.3Colorado Department of Labor & Employment. Independent Contractors and Coverage Exemptions4Department of Labor & Employment. Independent Contractors
Report the Injury to Your Employer Within Four Days
You have four working days from the date of injury to give your employer written notice. The notice should say what happened and what part of your body was hurt. Miss that window and your benefits can be reduced by one day’s compensation for each day you’re late.5Justia. Colorado Code 8-43-102 – Notice to Employer of Injury – Notice to Employees of Requirement – Failure to Report
Keep proof. A signed acknowledgment, a timestamped email, or a text with a read receipt all count. Late notice isn’t automatic disqualification, but adjusters use it as a reason to question whether the injury really happened at work. Same-day notice takes that argument off the table.
Occupational diseases such as repetitive stress injuries or lung conditions from chemical exposure don’t always have a clear accident date. For those, the reporting clock starts when you know or reasonably should know the condition is work-related. Once an injury results in more than three lost shifts, permanent impairment, or death, the insurer has 10 days to file a First Report of Injury with the Division.6Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Reporting Injuries
File Form WC 15 With the Division
Telling your employer isn’t the same as filing a claim. To start the legal process, submit a Worker’s Claim for Compensation (Form WC 15) to the Division of Workers’ Compensation, either through the online portal or by mail to the Denver office. Send a copy to your employer’s insurance carrier.7Department of Labor & Employment. File a Workers’ Compensation Claim
The form asks for the date, time, and location of the injury, how it happened, your employer and its carrier, and your treatment so far. Fill it out carefully. Vague or inconsistent descriptions give insurers ammunition to contest the claim later.
The Two-Year Deadline
You have two years from the date of injury to file the WC 15. After that, the claim is barred. There’s a narrow escape valve: if within three years you can show a reasonable excuse for the delay and that your employer wasn’t prejudiced by it, the Division director may still accept the claim. And if your employer knew about the injury but never filed its own required report, the two-year clock doesn’t start against you until the employer files.8Justia. Colorado Code 8-43-103 – Notice of Injury – Time Limit
Occupational diseases from radioactive materials, uranium compounds, asbestos, or silica follow separate timing rules because of their long latency periods, and the two-year limit doesn’t apply.8Justia. Colorado Code 8-43-103 – Notice of Injury – Time Limit
What the Insurer Does Next
Once the Division has your claim and the employer has filed its report, the insurance carrier has 20 days to respond in writing.9FindLaw. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 8 – 8-43-203 There are two typical responses. A General Admission of Liability means the insurer accepts the claim and starts paying medical bills and wage replacement. A Notice of Contest means the insurer disputes the claim, and no benefits get paid until a judge resolves the dispute.
Partial admissions are also common: the insurer accepts the injury but contests the extent of your disability or the specific treatment your doctor recommends. Those often become fights later about how long benefits should last or what care is covered.
Choosing a Doctor
You can’t pick any doctor you want. When you report the injury, your employer or its carrier must give you a designated provider list with at least four physicians or corporate medical providers, or a qualifying combination. You choose from that list, and that provider becomes your authorized treating physician.10Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes 8-43-404 – Examination In rural areas without four willing providers within 30 miles, the list can be shorter.
Going to a doctor who isn’t on the list and isn’t authorized by the insurer is risky. The insurer generally won’t pay for unauthorized treatment, and the bills fall on you. The main exception is when the insurer denied the claim, the employer never offered its provider list at the time of injury, and you received care at a public health facility or through a publicly funded program.10Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes 8-43-404 – Examination
If you don’t get along with the doctor you picked, you get one chance to switch within 90 days of the injury, as long as you haven’t reached maximum medical improvement yet. The new doctor still has to come from the designated list. You submit a Division-approved form to the employer’s designated representative, and if the insurer doesn’t object in writing within seven business days, the switch goes through automatically.11Cornell Law Institute. 7 CCR 1101-3-17-8 – Authorized Treating Physician
At some point the insurer may send you to a doctor of its choosing for an independent medical examination. That doctor doesn’t treat you and no doctor-patient relationship is created. The point is to get a second opinion, often to justify cutting off benefits. You have to go. Skipping an IME can cost you your benefits.
What You Can Collect
Temporary Total Disability
If the injury keeps you completely off work for more than three regular shifts, you qualify for temporary total disability (TTD) benefits: two-thirds of your average weekly wage, capped at 91% of the state average weekly wage. The state adjusts that cap each July 1.12Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes 8-42-105
The first three missed shifts are a waiting period with no TTD. But if your disability lasts more than two weeks total, you get paid back for those first three days. TTD continues as long as you remain completely unable to work, until you reach maximum medical improvement, or until another terminating event ends it.
Permanent Partial Disability
Once your doctor decides you’ve reached maximum medical improvement and you still have lasting limitations, you may qualify for permanent partial disability (PPD) benefits, also called medical impairment benefits. Your doctor gives you an impairment rating as a percentage of functional loss.13Department of Labor & Employment. Understand Potential Benefits
Colorado sorts impairments into two categories. Scheduled injuries cover loss of function to fingers, hands, arms, toes, feet, legs, eyes, vision, or hearing, and pay a set number of weeks of compensation from a statutory schedule for each body part. Non-scheduled injuries cover the spine, lungs, and mental function, and are calculated by multiplying the impairment rating by an age factor and by 400 weeks, paid at the TTD rate.14Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes 8-42-107 – Schedule of Benefits
You can request up to $10,000 of a PPD award as an immediate lump sum, less a statutory discount. The rest gets paid in periodic installments at the TTD rate, with a floor of $150 per week and a ceiling of 50% of the state average weekly wage.14Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes 8-42-107 – Schedule of Benefits
Death Benefits
When a workplace injury or occupational disease is fatal, dependents receive two-thirds of the worker’s average weekly wage, subject to the same 91% cap that applies to TTD. If dependents also receive federal Social Security survivor benefits or workers’ compensation from another state, the Colorado death benefit may be reduced by 50% of those other payments, but never below zero.15Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes 8-42-114 – Death Benefits
Taxes and Social Security
Workers’ compensation benefits aren’t taxable at the federal level. Under 26 U.S.C. § 104(a)(1), amounts received under workers’ compensation acts for personal injury or sickness are excluded from gross income, whether they come as weekly checks, a lump-sum settlement, or medical expense reimbursement.16Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 104 – Compensation for Injuries or Sickness Colorado doesn’t tax them either.
If you’re collecting Social Security Disability Insurance at the same time, the combined amount can’t exceed 80% of your pre-disability average earnings. Colorado is a reverse-offset state, so it’s the SSDI payment that gets reduced, not the workers’ compensation check. The reduction runs until you reach full retirement age or your workers’ compensation ends, whichever comes first.17Social Security Administration. How Workers’ Compensation and Other Disability Payments May Affect Your Benefits
If Your Claim Is Denied
A Notice of Contest doesn’t end the claim. You can ask for a formal hearing before an administrative law judge at the Office of Administrative Courts. Both sides present evidence and testimony, and the judge issues a written decision.
You start by filing an Application for Hearing. At least 20 days before the hearing, you have to exchange every document you plan to use as evidence with the other side. Miss that deadline and the judge can refuse to consider your documents. You generally present your case first, but the burden flips when the insurer is trying to stop benefits it already started paying.18Colorado Office of Administrative Courts. The Non-Lawyers’ Guide for Workers’ Compensation Proceedings
Expedited hearings are available in specific situations: filing within 45 days of a Notice of Contest, denial of prior authorization for medical treatment, or a dispute over a physician change request. When the judge needs additional time after the hearing, the written order is due within 15 business days.18Colorado Office of Administrative Courts. The Non-Lawyers’ Guide for Workers’ Compensation Proceedings
If Your Employer Retaliates
Colorado courts recognize a common-law claim for retaliatory discharge when an employer fires a worker for filing a workers’ compensation claim. If you’re terminated, demoted, or your working conditions change significantly because you exercised your right to seek benefits, that’s grounds for a separate wrongful termination lawsuit, independent of the workers’ compensation claim itself, with damages beyond what workers’ compensation provides.
The Americans with Disabilities Act applies when your injury qualifies as a disability. Employers can’t enforce blanket “100% healed” policies that require you to return with no restrictions. They have to consider reasonable accommodations such as modified duties or reassignment to a vacant position, unless doing so would cause undue hardship.