Top 12 Claims Adjuster Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the crowded world of claims adjusting, the skills you surface on a resume can tip the scales. Show what matters, prove you can do the work, and make it obvious you can move a claim from first notice to closure without drama or drift. Below are the top 12 skills worth highlighting to catch attention and deliver results once you’re in the seat.

Claims Adjuster Skills

1. Xactimate
2. Negotiation
3. Estimation
4. Documentation
5. Investigation
6. Analytical
7. Time Management
8. Customer Service
9. Microsoft Office
10. Claims Management
11. Regulatory Compliance
12. Communication

1. Xactimate

Xactimate is the estimating platform many property adjusters rely on to scope damage, build line-item estimates, and align payouts with policy and pricing data.

Why It's Important

It standardizes estimates, speeds decisions, and keeps numbers consistent across carriers, vendors, and jurisdictions. That means fewer disputes, clearer documentation, and fairer settlements.

How to Improve Xactimate Skills

Dial in fundamentals, then push for speed and accuracy.

1. Get trained: Take structured courses (beginner to advanced). Certifications help, but the real win is confidence with sketches, line items, and pricing.

2. Practice with purpose: Build sample estimates weekly. Recreate complex losses from past files. Time yourself. Reduce rework.

3. Tighten your sketch: Master rooms, roofs, elevations, and openings. Accurate sketches prevent cascading errors.

4. Use macros and templates: Create repeatable assemblies for your common perils and trades. Save notes you reuse.

5. Price lists and updates: Keep local market price lists current. Document variances when material costs surge.

6. Line item notes: Add brief, clear rationale for any atypical allowances. Future you (and QA) will thank you.

7. Integrations: Pull in aerial measurements and photos where allowed to speed scoping without sacrificing accuracy.

How to Display Xactimate Skills on Your Resume

2. Negotiation

Negotiation is the back-and-forth that gets a claim to yes—aligning coverage, facts, and expectations into a settlement both sides can accept.

Why It's Important

It cuts cycle time, limits escalations, and protects relationships. Fair results, fewer headaches.

How to Improve Negotiation Skills

1. Prepare like a pro: Know the policy, facts, valuations, and your walk-away. Anticipate pushback. Have evidence at the ready.

2. Build trust early: Establish tone, explain process, set timelines. Predictability cools temperature.

3. Listen for interests: Clarify what truly matters to the other party. Solve that, not just the surface ask.

4. Anchor with data: Use photos, estimates, market rates, guidelines. Numbers beat hunches.

5. Trade, don’t cave: Offer concessions tied to reciprocal movement. Keep core principles intact.

6. Stay calm under heat: Pause. Reframe. Take a break rather than rush a bad agreement.

7. Debrief: After each negotiation, note what worked and what backfired. Iterate.

How to Display Negotiation Skills on Your Resume

3. Estimation

Estimation is the art and math of quantifying loss—labor, materials, code upgrades, and the messy realities in between.

Why It's Important

Accurate estimates keep indemnity fair, reserves right-sized, and disputes rare.

How to Improve Estimation Skills

1. Deepen domain knowledge: Learn trades, materials, building systems, and local codes. Certifications like AIC or CPCU coursework sharpen perspective.

2. Use the data: Analyze past files. Compare initial vs. final payouts. Identify where you under- or over-shot.

3. Tight scoping: Inspect systematically. Room by room. Elevation by elevation. Don’t guess—verify.

4. Benchmark costs: Track regional labor rates and supply volatility. Document variances.

5. Peer review: Quick second eyes on complex losses catch blind spots fast.

6. Clear claimant dialogue: Confirm pre-loss condition, upgrades, and access. Misunderstandings inflate supplements.

How to Display Estimation Skills on Your Resume

4. Documentation

Documentation is the record: photos, notes, statements, reports, invoices, timelines, and decisions that show what happened and why the outcome makes sense.

Why It's Important

If it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen. Solid files withstand audits, complaints, and litigation, and they speed handoffs across teams.

How to Improve Documentation Skills

1. Standardize: Use templates and checklists for scene notes, recorded statements, and coverage letters.

2. Be concise and exact: Short sentences, precise facts, clear attributions. No fluff.

3. Timestamp everything: Maintain a clean chronology of contacts, decisions, and evidence received.

4. Show, don’t tell: Photos, diagrams, measurements, and annotated screenshots beat vague descriptions.

5. Secure storage: Keep files organized with consistent naming, metadata, and access controls. Protect PII.

6. Compliance cues: Note when letters go out, responses come in, and statutory timelines are met.

7. Ongoing training: Review exemplary files. Learn from QA feedback. Adjust your habits.

How to Display Documentation Skills on Your Resume

5. Investigation

Investigation is verifying facts, testing stories, and triangulating evidence to determine coverage, liability, and extent of loss.

Why It's Important

Good investigations deter fraud, surface truth, and keep settlements fair.

How to Improve Investigation Skills

1. Interview with intent: Open-ended questions first, specifics later. Listen for gaps, timelines, and contradictions.

2. Corroborate: Cross-check statements with photos, receipts, weather reports, repair logs, and device data when permitted.

3. Scene discipline: Document from wide to close-up. Capture serials, measurements, and points of origin.

4. Fraud red flags: Pattern-match prior losses, financial stressors, late coverage changes, or inconsistent damage patterns. Note, don’t accuse.

5. Leverage tech: Use claims systems, analytics, and digital intake to spot anomalies quickly.

6. Know the law: Stay current on state rules for statements, recordings, privacy, and subrogation.

7. Collaborate: Loop in SIU, experts, or counsel early when the facts get thorny.

How to Display Investigation Skills on Your Resume

6. Analytical

Analytical skill means breaking claims into their moving parts, weighing evidence, comparing outcomes, and making defensible decisions.

Why It's Important

It reduces bias, spots outliers, and keeps payouts aligned with facts and policy.

How to Improve Analytical Skills

1. Structure your thinking: Frame hypotheses. List assumptions. Test each against the file.

2. Get data fluent: Use spreadsheets for pivoting loss data, trend spotting, and reserve analysis.

3. Check the edges: Hunt for outliers, missing documents, or numbers that don’t reconcile.

4. Root cause mindset: Ask “why” until you hit the underlying driver, not just the symptom.

5. Peer calibration: Compare your outcomes to team benchmarks. Adjust where you drift.

6. Keep learning: Case studies, mock files, and QA feedback sharpen judgment.

How to Display Analytical Skills on Your Resume

7. Time Management

Time management is triaging, prioritizing, and executing so claims move without bottlenecks and customers aren’t left waiting.

Why It's Important

Better throughput, fewer escalations, calmer days. Deadlines stop being cliffs.

How to Improve Time Management Skills

1. Triage daily: Sort by urgency, regulatory deadlines, and impact. Work the high-risk items first.

2. Timebox: Block focused windows for inspections, estimate writing, and calls. Guard them.

3. Batch tasks: Group similar activities—voicemails, follow-ups, supplements—to reduce context switching.

4. Set SLAs: Establish personal response standards (same-day acknowledgment, 48-hour updates) and track them.

5. Automate reminders: Use calendar holds, task lists, and queue alerts for statutory letters and follow-ups.

6. Close the loop: End the day by planning tomorrow. Clear your small items in one sweep.

How to Display Time Management Skills on Your Resume

8. Customer Service

Customer service is guiding people through loss with clarity and respect, while setting fair expectations and delivering on them.

Why It's Important

Trust rises, complaints fall, and satisfaction sticks—even when outcomes aren’t perfect.

How to Improve Customer Service Skills

1. Communicate proactively: Plain language, no jargon. Share next steps and timelines before they ask.

2. Empathy first: Acknowledge stress. Validate concerns. Then walk through solutions.

3. Speed matters: Rapid acknowledgment and regular updates beat silence every time.

4. Set boundaries: Be clear about coverage and limits. Kind and firm beats fuzzy and late.

5. Consistency: Keep notes tight so any teammate can pick up the file and serve seamlessly.

6. Ask for feedback: Short surveys or quick calls reveal friction points you can fix.

How to Display Customer Service Skills on Your Resume

9. Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, SharePoint/Teams, and Power Automate) underpins reports, analysis, communication, and collaboration.

Why It's Important

It keeps documents clean, data credible, and messages timely—core ingredients for smooth claims handling.

How to Improve Microsoft Office Skills

1. Word: Build templates and Quick Parts for letters and coverage positions. Use styles for consistent formatting.

2. Excel: Learn pivot tables, conditional formatting, filters, and key formulas for loss runs and reserve analytics. Power Query for data cleanup.

3. Outlook: Create rules, categories, and Quick Steps. Templates for frequent responses. Schedule sends.

4. OneNote: Centralize call notes and checklists per claim. Tag action items and sync across devices.

5. Power Automate: Automate routine notifications, task creation, and file routing where policy allows.

6. SharePoint/Teams: Use shared libraries and channels for version control, handoffs, and approvals.

How to Display Microsoft Office Skills on Your Resume

10. Claims Management

Claims management is the end-to-end process—intake, investigation, evaluation, negotiation, settlement, and recovery—run with control and clarity.

Why It's Important

It balances customer care with financial stewardship and compliance. Done well, it reduces leakage and accelerates closure.

How to Improve Claims Management Skills

1. Refine intake: Clean first notice of loss data reduces downstream rework. Standardize questions.

2. Right-size workflows: Straight-through simple claims, escalate complex ones, and triage early.

3. Measure what matters: Track cycle times, touch counts, severity trends, reserve accuracy, and reopen rates.

4. Use analytics: Spot patterns in supplements, vendor performance, and fraud indicators.

5. Customer transparency: Clear milestones and update cadence. Surprises kill trust.

6. Recover value: Build playbooks for salvage and subrogation. Don’t leave money on the table.

7. Continuous improvement: Regular audits, root cause fixes, and lean tweaks to remove friction.

How to Display Claims Management Skills on Your Resume

11. Regulatory Compliance

Regulatory compliance means following the laws and rules that govern claim handling, from timelines to disclosures to privacy.

Why It's Important

It protects policyholders, prevents penalties, and preserves the credibility of the process.

How to Improve Regulatory Compliance Skills

1. Stay current: Monitor state DOI bulletins, unfair claims practices acts, and privacy requirements (GLBA, state privacy laws).

2. Embed controls: Use system prompts, required fields, and ticklers for statutory letters and deadlines.

3. Train regularly: Short refreshers on new rules, record retention, and documentation standards.

4. Audit and remediate: Sample files monthly. Fix root causes, not just symptoms.

5. Consult experts: Involve compliance or counsel early on edge cases and multi-jurisdictional claims.

How to Display Regulatory Compliance Skills on Your Resume

12. Communication

Communication is timely, plainspoken updates—written and verbal—that reduce confusion and build alignment.

Why It's Important

It shortens cycles, lowers friction, and keeps everyone rowing in the same direction.

How to Improve Communication Skills

1. Active listening: Reflect back what you heard. Confirm you’ve got it right before deciding.

2. Clarity over clever: Simple words, short sentences, and clear actions.

3. Right channel, right time: Email for records, phone for nuance, text only if policy allows. Summarize agreements in writing.

4. Set expectations: Explain steps, timelines, and what you need from the other party.

5. Follow through: Close loops quickly. Silence breeds complaints.

How to Display Communication Skills on Your Resume