Under the Jones Act, an injured seaman is owed maintenance (a daily food-and-lodging allowance), cure (all reasonable medical costs until maximum medical improvement), and unearned wages through the end of the voyage — all on a no-fault basis. This Jones Act maintenance and cure calculator estimates each of those three components and totals them. Enter your daily maintenance rate, recovery days, unpaid medical (cure) costs, daily wage, and remaining contract days below, and the calculator produces your estimated maintenance and cure benefit. Maintenance and cure is one of the oldest rights in maritime law: it is owed to any seaman who is injured or falls ill in the service of a vessel, no matter who was at fault, and it exists separately from a Jones Act negligence lawsuit.
Whether you are a deckhand, fisherman, tugboat crew member, offshore worker, or other seaman researching the maintenance daily rate, what cure covers, or Jones Act unearned wages, the maintenance and cure calculator below gives you a concrete starting figure. Read the detailed sections afterward on how the maintenance rate is set, when payments stop at maximum medical improvement, how unearned wages work, and how maintenance and cure differs from a full Jones Act claim for pain and suffering and lost future earnings.
The maintenance and cure calculator above adds the three benefits an injured seaman is generally owed. The formula is:
Maintenance = Daily Maintenance Rate × Recovery Days
Unearned Wages = Daily Wage × Remaining Days of Voyage / Contract
Total Benefit = Maintenance + Cure (medical costs) + Unearned Wages
Maintenance replaces the free room and board you lost when you could no longer live aboard the vessel, paid as a daily rate for every day of your recovery until maximum medical improvement. Cure is the vessel owner's obligation to pay your reasonable and necessary medical expenses for the same period. Unearned wages are the pay (and often the value of found) you would have earned from the date of injury to the end of your voyage or contract. All three are owed without regard to fault — you do not have to prove the vessel owner did anything wrong to receive them.
Maintenance and cure is one of the oldest doctrines in maritime law, predating the Jones Act itself. It guarantees that a seaman who becomes sick or injured while in the service of a vessel will have basic living support and medical treatment during recovery, regardless of how the injury happened. The duty is broad: it applies even if the seaman was partly at fault, and it covers illnesses that arise during service, not just traumatic injuries. The U.S. Supreme Court has long described this protection as broad and humane, and courts resolve doubts about its scope in the seaman's favor.
The daily maintenance rate is meant to cover the actual reasonable cost of the food and lodging you would have received aboard the ship. Two situations are common:
Courts have rejected maintenance rates that are unreasonably low and do not reflect real living costs. Because the proper rate is fact-specific, the calculator lets you enter whatever daily rate applies to your situation; if you are unsure, document your actual food and lodging costs and discuss the rate with a maritime attorney.
| Maintenance Situation | Typical Daily Rate Basis |
|---|---|
| Union contract (older agreements) | Fixed, sometimes $8–$15/day |
| Union contract (modern agreements) | Fixed, often higher |
| Non-union, proven actual costs | Real food + lodging cost per day |
Cure is the vessel owner's duty to pay the reasonable and necessary cost of medical treatment until you reach maximum medical improvement. It typically includes doctor and specialist visits, hospital and surgical care, prescription medication, physical therapy and rehabilitation, diagnostic imaging, and reasonable travel for treatment. Cure is owed regardless of fault, and the owner generally may not unilaterally cut it off before a qualified physician determines you have reached MMI. If you have paid medical bills out of pocket, those amounts are part of your cure claim — which is why the calculator includes an out-of-pocket cure field.
Beyond maintenance and cure, an injured seaman is generally entitled to unearned wages: the wages, and often the value of found (food and lodging), that you would have earned from the date of injury through the end of the voyage or the contract period. For a defined voyage, this runs to the end of that voyage; for a seasonal or term contract, it can run to the end of the term. The calculator estimates unearned wages as your daily wage multiplied by the remaining days. This benefit is separate from any lost-future-earnings claim you might bring under the Jones Act negligence theory.
Suppose a deckhand is injured and will take 120 days to reach maximum medical improvement. His proven maintenance rate is $35 per day. He has $40,000 in unpaid medical bills (cure). He earns $200 per day, and 60 days remain on his contract. The calculation is:
The calculator displays $56,200 as the estimated no-fault benefit. If this seaman can also prove the vessel owner was negligent or the vessel was unseaworthy, a separate Jones Act claim could add damages for pain and suffering and lost future earning capacity on top of this figure.
It is important to understand that maintenance and cure is only part of what an injured seaman may recover. There are three overlapping maritime remedies:
| Remedy | Fault Required? | What It Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Maintenance & cure | No | Daily living allowance + medical + unearned wages |
| Jones Act negligence | Yes (employer/crew fault) | Pain & suffering, lost future earnings, full damages |
| Unseaworthiness | Yes (defective vessel/gear) | Full damages from an unsafe vessel |
A seaman can pursue all three at once. Maintenance and cure provides a no-fault safety net during recovery, while the Jones Act and unseaworthiness claims can add substantial additional damages if negligence or a defective vessel caused the injury.
The obligation to pay maintenance and cure continues until you reach maximum medical improvement — the medically determined point at which your condition will not get better with further treatment. Once a qualified physician declares MMI, maintenance and cure ends. Disputes frequently arise over whether MMI has genuinely been reached, especially when the vessel owner's chosen doctor declares MMI earlier than the seaman's treating physician. Because the MMI date directly controls how many days of maintenance you are owed, the supporting medical evidence is critical, and premature cutoffs are a common source of litigation.
Maritime law gives maintenance and cure real teeth. If a vessel owner unreasonably or willfully refuses to pay maintenance and cure that is clearly owed, courts can award the seaman additional compensatory damages, and in egregious cases punitive damages and attorney fees, as recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court. This makes prompt, documented claims important: keep records of your living costs, your medical bills, and every communication with the employer or its insurer, because that documentation supports both the underlying benefit and any penalty claim if payment is wrongfully withheld.
Maintenance and cure and the Jones Act protect seamen — workers who have a substantial connection to a vessel (or fleet of vessels) in navigation, both in duration and in the nature of their work. This generally includes deckhands, fishermen, tugboat and barge crews, dredge workers, and many offshore-vessel workers. It generally does not cover longshore workers loading ships from the dock, who are instead covered by a different federal law. Whether a particular worker qualifies as a seaman is a fact-intensive question and is often disputed, so eligibility should be confirmed with a maritime attorney.
Maintenance and cure is an ancient maritime right, separate from a Jones Act negligence claim, that a vessel owner owes any seaman who becomes injured or ill in the service of the ship, regardless of fault. Maintenance is a daily living allowance covering food and lodging ashore while you recover; cure is payment of your reasonable medical expenses until you reach maximum medical improvement. Many injured seamen are also owed unearned wages through the end of the voyage or contract.
The maintenance rate is meant to cover the actual reasonable cost of the food and lodging you would have received aboard the vessel. Some union seamen have a fixed contractual rate (historically as low as $8 to $15 a day, and higher in modern agreements), while non-union seamen can prove their actual room-and-board costs ashore, which often supports a substantially higher daily rate. Courts have rejected unreasonably low rates, so the proper maintenance rate reflects real local living costs.
Cure covers the reasonable and necessary medical expenses of treating your injury or illness until you reach maximum medical improvement (MMI), the point at which further treatment will not improve your condition. This includes doctor visits, hospital care, surgery, prescriptions, physical therapy, and related medical travel. Cure is owed regardless of who caused the injury, and the vessel owner generally cannot stop paying it until a medical determination of MMI is made.
The calculator multiplies your daily maintenance rate by the number of recovery days to estimate total maintenance, adds your unpaid or out-of-pocket cure (medical) costs, and adds unearned wages calculated as your daily wage times the remaining days of the voyage or contract. The total is what the vessel owner may owe you in maintenance and cure benefits, separate from any additional Jones Act negligence or unseaworthiness damages.
Yes. In addition to maintenance and cure, an injured seaman is generally entitled to unearned wages, which are the wages (and often the value of found, such as food and lodging) the seaman would have earned from the date of injury through the end of the voyage or the contract period, depending on the type of employment. The calculator estimates this as your daily wage multiplied by the remaining days of the voyage or contract.
Yes. Maintenance and cure is a no-fault benefit owed simply because you were injured in the service of the vessel, while a Jones Act claim is a negligence claim that requires proving the employer or a co-worker was at fault, and an unseaworthiness claim targets a defective vessel or equipment. An injured seaman can pursue maintenance and cure and a Jones Act negligence claim at the same time; the negligence claim can add damages for pain and suffering and lost future earnings on top of maintenance and cure.
Yes. If a vessel owner unreasonably or willfully fails to pay maintenance and cure that is clearly owed, courts can award the seaman additional compensatory damages and, in egregious cases, punitive damages and attorney fees, as recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court. This is a powerful incentive for owners to pay legitimate maintenance and cure promptly, and it is one reason injured seamen should document their living and medical costs carefully.
Maintenance and cure continues until you reach maximum medical improvement (MMI), the medically determined point at which your condition will not improve further with additional treatment. Once a qualified physician declares MMI, the obligation to pay maintenance and cure ends, although any separate Jones Act negligence claim for future losses can continue. Disputes often arise over whether MMI has truly been reached, so the medical evidence is critical.