How Much Compensation Do You Get for a Burn at Work in Denver? What a Burn Injury at Work Pays in Colorado

This page provides general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always consult a licensed attorney for advice specific to your situation.

The Short Answer: Two Systems, Two Different Amounts

Burn at work compensation in Colorado starts with the workers’ compensation system, which covers a job injury by default. That system pays your medical care, part of your lost wages, an award for permanent loss of function, and a separate award for scarring.

What it doesn’t do is pay you for the pain, the sleepless nights or the way a visible scar changes how you move through the world. Those belong to a civil injury claim, and that claim exists only when someone other than your employer is responsible.

So the honest answer to “how much” depends on which of these you have:

• Workers’ compensation only. The amounts come from the statute and the state’s annual benefit order.
• Workers’ compensation plus a claim against a party who doesn’t work for your employer. The second claim can cover losses that the first claim does not include.

What Colorado Workers’ Compensation Pays for a Burn

Colorado sets these benefits by law, and the Division of Workers’ Compensation publishes new maximum figures every July. The table below uses the order that took effect July 1, 2026.

Benefit	What it covers	Current limit
Medical care	Treatment, surgery, hospital care, and supplies “as may reasonably be needed at the time of the injury or occupational disease and thereafter during the disability” (C.R.S. 8-42-101)	No dollar cap
Temporary total disability	Two-thirds of your average weekly wage while you can’t work	$1,464.12 per week
Scheduled impairment	Permanent loss of use of a hand, arm, foot, leg, eye, or hearing	$459.45 per week
Whole person impairment	Permanent loss affecting the spine, lungs, or mental function	Paid at the temporary rate, between $150.00 and $804.46 per week
Disfigurement	Serious, permanent scarring, including burn scars	$7,750.99, or $15,499.23 for extensive scars
Combined wage and impairment cap	The ceiling on temporary plus permanent partial benefits together	$202,297.46 at 19% impairment or less, $328,049.94 at 20% or more
Funeral and burial	Paid if a worker dies from the injury	$14,891.25

A few details behind those numbers matter for a burn case:

• There’s a short waiting period. The state explains that lost wage benefits aren’t paid “until you have missed three shifts from work” and that the waiting period is reimbursed if you miss more than two weeks (Colorado Division of Workers’ Compensation).
• The wage rate is capped both ways. Temporary total disability is “sixty-six and two-thirds percent” of your average weekly wage, “not to exceed a maximum of ninety-one percent of the state average weekly wage per week” (C.R.S. 8-42-105(1)). The state average weekly wage used for the current year is $1,608.91.
• These benefits are not taxed. The Division states plainly that “benefits received under workers’ compensation are not taxable.”
• Travel to treatment counts. You can request reimbursement for mileage and parking for medical visits, and you have to ask within 120 days of the travel.

Scars and Burn Marks Have Their Own Payment

This is the part of Colorado law written with burns in mind, and it’s easy to miss.

Colorado allows extra compensation when an employee is “seriously, permanently disfigured about the head, face, or parts of the body normally exposed to public view” (C.R.S. 8-42-108(1)). The statute then singles out three categories for a higher amount: “extensive facial scars or facial burn scars,” “extensive body scars or burn scars,” and stumps from the loss of limbs (C.R.S. 8-42-108(2)).

The dollar figures printed in the statute are out of date on purpose. The director “shall adjust the limits on the amount of compensation for disfigurement” each July 1 in line with the state average weekly wage (C.R.S. 8-42-108(3)). As of July 1, 2026, the ceiling is $7,750.99 for disfigurement generally and up to $15,499.23 for extensive facial or body burn scars.

Two things to keep in mind:

• The award is discretionary. The statute says the director “may allow” compensation up to those limits. A hearing decides the amount, and how the scarring is presented matters.
• It sits on top of everything else. Disfigurement compensation is paid “in addition to all other compensation benefits” the Act provides.

What You Have to Claim Somewhere Else

Colorado’s system is a trade. Benefits arrive without you having to prove your employer did anything wrong, and in exchange the employer is protected from being sued.

An employer who has complied with the Act, including the insurance requirements, is not “subject to any other liability for the death of or personal injury to any employee,” and other causes of action “are abolished except as provided in said articles” (C.R.S. 8-41-102).

That means the following aren’t part of a Colorado workers’ compensation claim against your employer:

• Pain and suffering, which Colorado law treats as noneconomic loss along with “inconvenience, emotional stress, and impairment of the quality of life” (C.R.S. 13-21-102.5)
• The full amount of your lost wages, since the wage benefit is two-thirds and is capped
• Loss of enjoyment of the things you did before the burn
• A spouse’s loss of your companionship

Our page comparing a personal injury claim and workers compensation in Colorado walks through the split in more detail.

When Another Company Caused the Burn

If anyone other than your employer was involved in the burn, the financial side of your case changes.

Colorado law says that if you’re injured “by the negligence or wrong of another not in the same employ,” you may take workers’ compensation benefits and “also pursue a remedy against the other person to recover any damages in excess of the compensation available” (C.R.S. 8-41-203(1)(a)). That second claim is an ordinary injury case, and it can include the losses workers’ compensation leaves out.

The test turns on who the person works for. A crew from another company standing beside you on your site is not in the same employ, and a claim against that company is allowed. Burns at work are one of the injuries where such a party turns up regularly:

• A subcontractor or another trade on the same site whose work caused the fire, flash, or spill
• A manufacturer whose equipment, wiring, fuel system, or protective gear failed
• A property owner or landlord responsible for the building’s electrical or gas systems
• A driver who caused a crash while you were working, including a fuel or chemical fire
• A utility or service company doing work at the location
• A chemical supplier that shipped the product mislabeled or without proper warnings

In that second claim, Colorado allows non-economic damages, and for claims accruing on or after January 1, 2025, the limit on those damages is $1.5 million, with the first inflation adjustment due January 1, 2028 (C.R.S. 13-21-102.5(3)(a)(II), (3)(c)(I)(B)). Your share can be reduced if you’re found partly at fault, and it’s barred if your share of the negligence is “as great as the negligence of the person against whom recovery is sought” (C.R.S. 13-21-111).

One practical wrinkle: the insurer that paid your workers’ compensation benefits has a right to be repaid out of that recovery, becausepaying those benefitss “shall operate as and be an assignment of the cause of action against such other person” (C.R.S. 8-41-203(1)(b)). A lawyer handles that repayment as part of resolving the case. For more on what a civil claim can include, see our guide to the types of damages in a Colorado personal injury case.

What Can Cut a Colorado Work Injury Payment

Several rules can reduce what you receive. The Division of Workers’ Compensation lists these:

1. A safety rule violation. If you were required to wear a safety device and didn’t, you may lose 50% of your non-medical benefits.
2. A positive drug or alcohol test may also reduce non-medical benefits by 50%. Where an employer’s policy requires testing after an injury, a positive result may also reduce non-medical benefits by 50%.
3. Misleading an employer about your ability to do the job can result in losing all temporary disability benefits.
4. Other benefits you receive. Unemployment, Social Security Disability, and employer-paid disability benefits have to be reported to the adjuster and can offset what workers’ compensation pays.
5. Missing an appointment. Temporary benefits can be suspended if you fail to appear at a rescheduled medical appointment knowing it will have that result (C.R.S. 8-42-105(3)).

None of these are automatic, and each one is contestable. If your checks are cut, someone made that decision, and you can challenge it.

The Deadlines After a Burn Injury at Work

Two separate deadlines start on the day you’re burned. One is for telling your employer, the other for filing the claim itself, and they carry different consequences.

Step	Colorado rule
Tell your employer	Written notice within ten days of the injury; failing to report can cost up to one day’s compensation for each day of delay (C.R.S. 8-43-102(1)(a))
File the workers’ compensation claim	Generally barred unless a notice claiming compensation is filed with the division “within two years after the injury,” with a possible extension to three years for a reasonable excuse (C.R.S. 8-43-103(2))
Sue a party not in the same employ	Generally two years for tort claims (C.R.S. 13-80-102), and three years where the injury arises from the use or operation of a motor vehicle (C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n))
If a government body is involved	Written notice within 182 days after you discover the injury, which is “a jurisdictional prerequisite” (C.R.S. 24-10-109(1))

If your employer was given notice of the injury and failed to report it to the division, the workers’ compensation limitation period doesn’t start running until that report is filed (C.R.S. 8-43-103(2)). Don’t count on that. Have a lawyer confirm your dates, and read our explainer on the Colorado personal injury statute of limitations if another company may be involved.

What Shapes the Number in a Real Case

Two workers with the same burn can end up with very different totals. These are the factors that influence a workers’ compensation claim for burn injuries and any claim that runs alongside it:

• The depth and size of the burn and whether it needed grafting. Our page on burn injury severity and compensation in Colorado explains how the degree of severity is assessed.
• Where the scarring is. The disfigurement award turns on whether it’s on the head, face, or a part of the body normally exposed to public view.
• Your average weekly wage, which sets the temporary and permanent rates.
• Your impairment rating, which decides both the permanent award and which combined cap applies.
• Whether you can return to the same work, with the same hours and duties.
• Whether anyone who doesn’t work for your employer is responsible, which is what opens the second claim.
• How the burn happened. A chemical exposure, an arc flash, and a vehicle fire each point to different responsible parties. See our pages on chemical burn injuries in Colorado and electrical burn injuries in Colorado.

Serious burns in the metro area are treated at facilities like Denver Health Medical Center, listed by the state as a Level I designated trauma facility (Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment). Those records are important later, so keep every discharge summary and follow-up note.

We read the file before talking about numbers. Anyone who quotes you a figure over the phone, before seeing your wage records, your impairment rating, and your photographs, is guessing.

How We Look at a Denver Work Burn

A work injury lawyer in Denver starts with what happened, who else was on site, and what equipment or substance was involved. Then we look at whether anyone who is not in the same employ as you shares responsibility, including other companies on your site, because that’s the question that decides whether a second claim exists at all.

What we ask for early:

• The incident report and the written notice you gave your employer
• Your medical records, including photographs of the burn as it heals
• Your wage records, which set the benefit rate
• The names of every other company working at the site that day
• The make and model of any equipment, vehicle, or chemical involved

Being straight with you about the facts: if your situation is purely a workers’ compensation matter with no other company involved, we may point you to a lawyer who handles those claims. That’s stated on our Colorado work injury and workers compensation page, and we’d rather tell you early than late.

Managing Partner Kevin Cheney is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). CGH Injury Lawyers, formerly Cheney Galluzzi & Howard, was founded in Denver in 2016 and prepares each case as if it will be tried. If Spanish is your first language, you can reach us at (303) 835-9177.

If the burn was fatal, our page on workplace fatality and wrongful death claims in Colorado explains how those claims work.

Talk to a Denver Burn Injury Lawyer

If you were burned on the job and want to know whether a claim exists beyond workers’ compensation, a Denver burn injury lawyer can look at the equipment, the site, and the other companies involved. Call (303) 209-9395 or use our contact page for the Denver office and tell us what happened.

Frequently Asked Questions

Written by CGH Injury Lawyers.

Last reviewed: September 25, 2026.

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