Industrial Accident Benefit Calculator

If you are injured at work and cannot work while you recover, industrial accident insurance pays a temporary disability benefit to replace part of your lost wages, separately from covering the medical costs. Enter your average daily wage, the number of days you could not work because of treatment, and the number of days since the accident, and the calculator shows the benefit per day, the total, and how much time is left to claim.

The time limit is shown deliberately. Many people hold back out of concern for their employer, or decide to "sort it out once I am better", and let the claim window close. The limit differs by type of benefit, and once it passes nothing can revive the claim. That is why the days remaining sit next to the benefit figure.

Any worker injured at work or made ill by it, not only permanent staff. Day labourers, part-timers, and foreign workers without valid immigration status are all covered. 산업재해보상보험법 제6조 applies the scheme to every business that employs workers and attaches no condition of nationality or visa status. Many foreign workers do not know this, never report the injury, and pay the hospital themselves.

Run it too when an employer suggests "settling privately" or says "we are not enrolled in the insurance". Workers are entitled to the benefit even if the employer never enrolled; the agency pays and then recovers the cost from the employer. A private settlement makes it hard to claim later if complications develop. Knowing what the scheme would pay gives you a yardstick for any offer.

The temporary disability benefit is set by 산업재해보상보험법 제52조: for each day you cannot work because of treatment, 70% of your average wage, except that nothing is paid if the period is 3 days or less. The calculation is simply the average daily wage times 70%, times the days off. Once you pass 3 days, the first 3 are not deducted; every day counts from the first. The provision only says no benefit is paid "if the period is within 3 days" and says nothing about subtracting them otherwise.

The time limits are in 제112조제1항. The right to a benefit lapses if not exercised within 3 years, or 5 years for disability benefit, survivor benefit, funeral expenses and pneumoconiosis pensions. The calculator subtracts the days since the accident from each limit and shows what remains, or flags that it has already expired. Medical care benefit under 제40조 is a separate benefit and its amount is not calculated here, though it too is withheld when treatment ends within 3 days; the same number of days appears in a different provision for a different benefit.

Suppose someone with an average daily wage of ₩100,000 is injured, cannot work for 30 days, and 60 days have passed since the accident. The daily benefit is 70% of ₩100,000, or ₩70,000, and 30 days of that is ₩2.1 million. There are 1,035 days left before the 3-year limit on medical and temporary disability benefits, and 1,765 days before the 5-year limit on disability and survivor benefits.

Had the same person returned after only 3 days, the period off work would be within 3 days and the benefit would be nil. One more day off, making four, and the benefit becomes four full days from the first, ₩280,000. That single boundary swings the result between zero and ₩280,000, so count the days off work precisely.

The biggest is not reporting the injury because of immigration status. The insurance does not ask about status, and it is settled interpretation that an injury suffered while working without valid status is still a covered accident. The second is accepting the employer's offer of a private settlement. No accident record is created, so proving causation is difficult if the injury recurs, and the settlement is usually less than the benefits would total. Talk to the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service first.

The third is putting off the claim. Medical and temporary disability benefits lapse after 3 years, and people genuinely do wait past that. The fourth is entering base pay alone as the average wage. The average wage is the total pay received in the three months before the accident divided by the days in that period, so it includes allowances, and base pay alone understates the benefit. Finally, this calculator handles the temporary disability benefit only; medical care benefit and disability benefit must be claimed separately.