Top 12 Claim Specialist Skills to Put on Your Resume

In today’s job market, a Claims Specialist stands out by showing sharp, relevant skills that prove you can handle complex investigations, communicate with empathy, and steer claims to clean, timely outcomes. A focused skills list tells employers you won’t get lost in the weeds—you’ll bring order, judgment, and momentum.

Claims Specialist Skills

1. Negotiation
2. Analysis
3. Documentation
4. Customer Service
5. Time Management
6. Microsoft Excel
7. Salesforce
8. SAP
9. Risk Assessment
10. Compliance
11. Claims Adjusting
12. Data Entry

1. Negotiation

Negotiation, for a Claims Specialist, is the back-and-forth that aligns policy obligations, facts, and expectations into a settlement everyone can accept. Less noise. More resolution.

Why It's Important

It avoids drawn-out disputes, protects relationships with policyholders and vendors, and delivers fair settlements that keep costs steady and trust intact.

How to Improve Negotiation Skills

1. Prep like a pro: Know the policy, the facts, the ranges you can move within, and the must-haves you won’t trade.
2. Listen for interests: Ask open questions, reflect back, uncover what actually matters to the other side.
3. Frame clearly: Use plain language, quantify where possible, summarize agreements frequently.
4. Manage emotions: Stay calm, separate people from problems, pause when heat rises.
5. Create options: Offer structured choices—lump sum, staged payments, alternative vendors—so agreement has room to land.
6. Debrief: After each negotiation, note what worked, what dragged, and what you’ll tweak next time.

How to Display Negotiation Skills on Your Resume

2. Analysis

Analysis means breaking down claim facts, coverage, and causation, then stitching them back into a defensible decision: liability, damages, and next steps.

Why It's Important

It flags fraud, clarifies exposure, speeds decisions, and ensures settlements align with policy and evidence.

How to Improve Analysis Skills

1. Tighten critical thinking: Separate assumptions from facts. Validate sources. Triangulate data.
2. Master policy language: Exclusions, endorsements, conditions—know them cold.
3. Use tools: Dashboards, pivot reports, and trend views to spot outliers and patterns fast.
4. Interview with intent: Structured questions, timelines, corroboration; document inconsistencies.
5. Stress-test decisions: Play devil’s advocate; ask “What would overturn this?”
6. Upskill regularly: Take courses in claims analytics, fraud indicators, and investigative techniques.

How to Display Analysis Skills on Your Resume

3. Documentation

Documentation is the permanent record: evidence, notes, decisions, timelines, and rationale—clear enough that someone new can follow the story in minutes.

Why It's Important

It protects compliance, accelerates audits, reduces rework, and anchors fair, defensible outcomes.

How to Improve Documentation Skills

1. Be specific: Write what happened, by whom, when, and how you verified it.
2. Use structure: Chronology, claim summary, coverage analysis, assessment, decision, next actions.
3. Standardize: Templates and checklists keep cases consistent and complete.
4. Make it skimmable: Headings, bullet points, and concise sentences.
5. Attach evidence properly: Label files, use version control, and reference them in notes.
6. Review often: Spot gaps, remove redundancy, update after new information.

How to Display Documentation Skills on Your Resume

4. Customer Service

Customer service is guiding people through a stressful moment with clarity and respect while moving the claim forward without friction.

Why It's Important

It reduces complaints, builds loyalty, and keeps conversations productive—even when delivering tough news.

How to Improve Customer Service Skills

1. Listen fully: Don’t rush the first story; it saves time later.
2. Set expectations: Timelines, documents needed, what happens next.
3. Communicate proactively: Status updates before they ask; no information blackouts.
4. Show empathy: Acknowledge impact, then steer to solutions.
5. Close loops: Confirm resolutions in writing and invite follow-up questions.

How to Display Customer Service Skills on Your Resume

5. Time Management

Time management is the choreography of deadlines, follow-ups, investigations, and documentation so nothing slips and everything moves.

Why It's Important

It protects service levels, shrinks cycle time, and keeps workloads sane.

How to Improve Time Management Skills

1. Prioritize by impact and urgency: Triage daily; adjust as facts change.
2. Block your calendar: Dedicated time for investigations, calls, and deep-work analysis.
3. Bundle tasks: Batch similar calls or reviews to reduce context switching.
4. Use reminders and queues: Escalate approaching deadlines automatically.
5. Protect focus: Limit notifications; use short sprints with planned breaks.

How to Display Time Management Skills on Your Resume

6. Microsoft Excel

Excel is the claims workbench for organizing data, reconciling payments, analyzing trends, and building quick reports.

Why It's Important

It boosts accuracy, speeds analysis, and turns raw data into decisions.

How to Improve Microsoft Excel Skills

1. Analysis tools: PivotTables, slicers, and the Analysis ToolPak for quick insights.
2. Advanced formulas: VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, IF/IFS, SUMIFS, TEXT functions for audit-ready sheets.
3. Data quality: Data Validation, conditional formatting, and error checks to keep entries clean.
4. Automation: Macros and basic VBA to eliminate repetitive steps.
5. Visualization: Clear charts, sparklines, and dashboards with consistent labeling.
6. Templates: Build reusable claim review and reserve tracking templates.

How to Display Microsoft Excel Skills on Your Resume

7. Salesforce

Salesforce is a CRM platform that centralizes customer data, tasks, communications, and workflows—useful for claim intake, tracking, and collaboration.

Why It's Important

It unifies information, standardizes processes, and surfaces real-time performance so claims move faster with fewer handoffs.

How to Improve Salesforce Skills

1. Customize objects and fields: Capture the exact claim data you need; enforce required fields.
2. Automate routine work: Assignment rules, notifications, approvals, and follow-ups.
3. Integrate systems: Sync policy, billing, and document management for a single source of truth.
4. Dashboards and reports: Monitor cycle times, workloads, recovery, and leakage.
5. Keep learning: Explore admin basics and new features; document internal best practices.

How to Display Salesforce Skills on Your Resume

8. SAP

SAP is an ERP platform that supports end‑to‑end processes—claims included—covering data capture, payments, analytics, and controls.

Why It's Important

It improves accuracy, traceability, and reporting while tying claims to finance and compliance.

How to Improve SAP Skills

1. Automate steps: Use workflows and business rules to handle approvals and routine checks.
2. Improve data quality: Establish validation rules and master data standards.
3. Use analytics: Build real-time dashboards for reserves, cycle time, and loss trends.
4. Simplify the UI: Configure role-based screens to cut clicks and errors.
5. Train continuously: Short refreshers when processes or releases change.
6. Collaborate in-system: Notes, tasks, and handoffs kept with the claim record.

How to Display SAP Skills on Your Resume

9. Risk Assessment

Risk assessment weighs likelihood and impact—exposure, fraud potential, legal risk—and guides reserves, strategy, and escalation.

Why It's Important

It protects financial stability, sharpens decisions, and targets resources where they matter most.

How to Improve Risk Assessment Skills

1. Use data science responsibly: Pattern detection, anomaly flags, and scorecards to prioritize reviews.
2. Refresh models: Update with new loss trends, regulations, and external factors.
3. Blend qualitative with quantitative: Witness credibility, documentation gaps, and contextual red flags matter.
4. Scenario planning: Best/worst/most-likely outcomes to set reserves and strategies.
5. Document rationale: Make the “why” clear for audits and appeals.

How to Display Risk Assessment Skills on Your Resume

10. Compliance

Compliance means handling claims in line with laws, regulations, policy terms, and internal controls—every time.

Why It's Important

It reduces legal risk, prevents penalties, protects customers, and preserves the organization’s reputation.

How to Improve Compliance Skills

1. Stay current: Track regulatory changes at state and federal levels; update procedures promptly.
2. Train and test: Role-based training with quick knowledge checks and job aids.
3. Build controls: Checklists, dual approvals for sensitive actions, audit trails.
4. Monitor and audit: Regular reviews, root-cause analysis, corrective actions with owners and timelines.
5. Document everything: Clear notes, decision rationales, and retention aligned to policy.

How to Display Compliance Skills on Your Resume

11. Claims Adjusting

Claims adjusting is the investigation and evaluation of loss: coverage, liability, damages, and settlement—done fairly and swiftly.

Why It's Important

It ensures accurate payouts, controls leakage, and keeps the process credible for both insurer and policyholder.

How to Improve Claims Adjusting Skills

1. Elevate investigations: Timelines, corroboration, site photos, recorded statements—organized and consistent.
2. Adopt technology: Digital intake, photo estimating, remote inspections, and decision support tools.
3. Refine estimating: Calibrate with market rates and current parts/labor costs; update frequently.
4. Strengthen communication: Clear coverage letters, empathetic calls, and prompt follow-ups.
5. Measure outcomes: Track cycle time, reopen rates, recoveries, and severity vs. benchmarks.

How to Display Claims Adjusting Skills on Your Resume

12. Data Entry

Data entry is the precise, timely capture of claim details into systems so decisions rest on clean, complete information.

Why It's Important

Accurate data speeds processing, reduces errors, and supports reporting, compliance, and payment integrity.

How to Improve Data Entry Skills

1. Standardize: Clear field definitions, naming conventions, and SOPs.
2. Validate at entry: Rules, picklists, and required fields to prevent bad data.
3. Work ergonomically: Dual monitors, keyboard shortcuts, and smart form layouts for speed.
4. Automate: Import structured data, scan-and-extract documents, and pre-fill known fields.
5. Quality checks: Spot audits, exception reports, and quick correction loops.

How to Display Data Entry Skills on Your Resume