Top 12 Insurance Customer Service Representative Skills to Put on Your Resume
In the crowded insurance world, a sharp resume matters. Blending tools, tact, and industry fluency can vault you ahead—show what you know, how you work with people, and how you keep policies and promises straight.
Insurance Customer Service Representative Skills
- Salesforce
- Zendesk
- Microsoft Office
- PolicyWorks
- Applied Epic
- Communication
- Empathy
- Problem-Solving
- Adaptability
- Time Management
- Attention to Detail
- Conflict Resolution
1. Salesforce
Salesforce is a customer relationship management platform that helps insurance reps track interactions, centralize policy and household data, coordinate outreach, and automate service tasks so customers get answers swiftly and consistently.
Why It's Important
It gathers every touchpoint in one place, speeds response times, reduces manual drudgery, and surfaces insights you can act on—key ingredients for satisfaction, retention, and clean audits.
How to Improve Salesforce Skills
Level it up by refining the data, the workflows, and the experience:
Tailor for insurance: Configure objects, page layouts, and record types for policies, claims, carriers, and households. Use Financial Services Cloud where appropriate.
Automate with Flow: Route cases, send alerts, update fields, and trigger follow-ups automatically. Fewer clicks. Fewer misses.
Integrate: Connect carrier portals, telephony, e-sign, and billing tools for a single source of truth. MuleSoft or native connectors—whatever fits.
Data hygiene: Build validation rules, required fields, and duplicate management. Trustworthy data makes everything else sing.
Personalize: Use segments and journeys to deliver relevant outreach for renewals, endorsements, and claims milestones.
Analytics: Use CRM Analytics (formerly Tableau CRM) or dashboards to monitor SLAs, first-contact resolution, and churn risks.
Feedback loop: Capture CSAT and case comments, then iterate on templates, macros, and workflows.
Do this well and Salesforce becomes the quiet engine behind fast, human service.
How to Display Salesforce Skills on Your Resume
2. Zendesk
Zendesk is a support platform for managing customer inquiries across email, chat, phone, and web. Think tickets, SLAs, knowledge bases, and tidy queues.
Why It's Important
It streamlines intake, standardizes responses, and keeps service measurable. That means faster answers, cleaner handoffs, and customers who feel heard.
How to Improve Zendesk Skills
Make the workspace work harder:
Customize: Create custom fields, forms, and views so policy numbers, lines of business, and priority cues are always visible.
Automate: Build triggers, automations, and macros for routing, acknowledgments, and routine steps.
Deflect smartly: Publish a polished knowledge base and embed suggested articles to reduce repetitive tickets.
Measure and tune: Track SLA breaches, backlog, and CSAT; adjust workflows where friction shows up.
Train and standardize: Keep macros, templates, and internal notes current with product and policy changes.
How to Display Zendesk Skills on Your Resume
3. Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office (now commonly delivered as Microsoft 365) includes Word, Excel, Outlook, and more—tools you’ll use for documentation, analysis, email, and scheduling, all day, every day.
Why It's Important
It’s the backbone for policy docs, claims lists, client comms, and simple reporting. When you’re quick and precise in these apps, customers feel it.
How to Improve Microsoft Office Skills
Small upgrades, big gains:
Templates: Standardize letters, endorsements, and certificate requests to keep tone and structure consistent.
Shortcuts: Learn keyboard shortcuts and Quick Steps/Quick Parts to speed email and document handling.
Excel mastery: Use PivotTables, XLOOKUP, filters, conditional formatting, and data validation for clean, fast analysis.
Notes and collaboration: Capture call notes in OneNote and share via Teams so nothing gets lost.
Automate: Build simple rules or flows for repetitive filing, notifications, and approvals where your stack allows.
Customize toolbars: Put your most-used actions one click away.
How to Display Microsoft Office Skills on Your Resume
4. PolicyWorks
PolicyWorks (often known as Applied Policy Works) is a commercial lines application used by insurance brokerages—especially in Canada—to rate, quote, and manage commercial policies, submissions, and documentation. It supports standardized workflows and integrates with agency systems.
Why It's Important
For a customer service representative, it consolidates complex commercial data, speeds remarketing, and keeps forms consistent and compliant—meaning fewer errors, quicker turnarounds, and clear audit trails.
How to Improve PolicyWorks Skills
Make it a dependable hub:
Standardize: Build templates, checklist-driven workflows, and naming conventions for submissions, endorsements, and certificates.
Integrate: Sync with your agency management system (e.g., Applied Epic) to avoid double entry and keep records aligned.
Data discipline: Use required fields and validation to keep schedules, limits, and forms clean and current.
Version control: Track changes, attachments, and binders methodically for clean audits.
Train often: Refresh on features, forms, and carrier nuances; maintain playbooks for niche industries.
Metrics: Monitor cycle times and error rates; improve bottlenecks quickly.
How to Display PolicyWorks Skills on Your Resume
5. Applied Epic
Applied Epic is an agency management system that centralizes accounts, policies, activities, documents, and downloads. It’s where service lives—renewals, certificates, tasks, and reporting.
Why It's Important
It cuts swivel-chair time, keeps records defensible, and provides a single place to manage the policy lifecycle. Faster responses, fewer gaps, happier customers.
How to Improve Applied Epic Skills
Turn it into a precision tool:
Personalize dashboards: Use MyEpic to surface your queues, renewals, and follow-ups at a glance.
Workflows: Build consistent activity codes, suspenses, and checklists for new business, endorsements, and claims.
Shortcuts: Learn hotkeys and quick navigation to trim seconds off every action.
Automate: Set recurring tasks, templates, and document generation where possible.
Stay current: Keep up with release notes and internal tips; small updates often unlock big efficiencies.
Community knowledge: Share discoveries and pain points with your team; standardize what works.
How to Display Applied Epic Skills on Your Resume
6. Communication
Clear, calm, precise. Communication in this role means explaining policies in plain language, confirming understanding, and closing loops without confusion.
Why It's Important
Misunderstandings are costly. Good communication avoids rework, reduces escalations, and builds trust quickly.
How to Improve Communication Skills
Practical, repeatable habits:
Active listening: Paraphrase, confirm details, and capture the ask before you answer.
Plain language: Skip jargon; use short sentences and examples tied to the customer’s situation.
Teach-back: Ask the customer to repeat next steps in their own words—gently—and correct gaps.
Tone and channel: Match urgency and preference; write for skimming, speak for clarity.
Consistency: Use approved templates and knowledge articles; update them when reality changes.
Feedback: Seek coaching on clarity and tone; practice, review, refine.
How to Display Communication Skills on Your Resume
7. Empathy
Empathy is reading the moment—recognizing stress, loss, or confusion—and responding with care while still guiding the process.
Why It's Important
Insurance touches peoples’ worst days. Empathy cools the temperature, earns permission to proceed, and opens the door to resolution.
How to Improve Empathy Skills
Presence, not platitudes:
Listen fully: Let customers finish; name the feeling you hear (“That sounds frustrating”).
Acknowledge and assure: Validate concerns; explain what you can do now and what happens next.
Ask open questions: Invite context to uncover the real need behind the request.
Mind your pace: Slow down your voice and delivery when emotions run high.
Boundaries with kindness: Be clear about limits while offering the best available options.
Follow-through: Close the loop promptly; reliability is empathy in action.
How to Display Empathy Skills on Your Resume
8. Problem-Solving
It’s the craft of untangling issues—policy questions, billing mishaps, claim snags—and landing on solutions that fit coverage, timing, and reality.
Why It's Important
Fast, accurate fixes preserve trust, cut churn, and keep operations humming.
How to Improve Problem-Solving Skills
Make it systematic:
Clarify: Capture the exact problem, desired outcome, and any deadlines.
Check facts: Verify policy terms, endorsements, and prior notes before deciding.
Explore options: Present clear choices with tradeoffs; recommend a path.
Set expectations: Define next steps, owners, and timelines—no ambiguity.
Document: Record logic, evidence, and outcomes for future reference.
Review: After resolution, reflect on what could be simplified or automated next time.
How to Display Problem-Solving Skills on Your Resume
9. Adaptability
Policies change. Systems change. Customer expectations change. Adaptability is shifting smoothly without dropping the ball.
Why It's Important
When regulations or carrier rules pivot, adaptable reps keep service steady and compliant.
How to Improve Adaptability Skills
Build range and resilience:
Learn continuously: Cross-train lines of business, products, and carriers.
Playbooks: Create quick-reference guides for new processes; update them ruthlessly.
Emotional control: Use breathing and pause techniques to stay steady under pressure.
Communication agility: Adjust explanations for the audience—novices, seasoned clients, internal teams.
Feedback habit: Ask what’s working and what isn’t; iterate fast.
Problem-first mindset: When rules change, focus on the customer’s goal, then map the new path.
How to Display Adaptability Skills on Your Resume
10. Time Management
Time management means triaging requests, prioritizing correctly, and keeping turnaround tight without sacrificing accuracy.
Why It's Important
Speed with quality drives satisfaction, renewals, and sane workloads.
How to Improve Time Management Skills
Trim waste, protect focus:
Triage ruthlessly: Separate urgent from important; bucket work by complexity.
Batch tasks: Group similar work—certs, endorsements, follow-ups—to reduce context switching.
Templates and macros: Save time on repeat communications and steps.
Calendar blocks: Reserve windows for deep work, call-backs, and admin wrap-up.
Call control: Guide conversations, summarize, and confirm next steps to prevent rework.
Daily review: End the day by setting tomorrow’s top three priorities.
How to Display Time Management Skills on Your Resume
11. Attention to Detail
In insurance, tiny errors can snowball. Attention to detail means precise data entry, careful document review, and consistent naming so nothing slips.
Why It's Important
It reduces E&O exposure, keeps policies accurate, and strengthens client confidence.
How to Improve Attention to Detail Skills
Build guardrails and habits:
Two-pass reviews: First for completeness, second for accuracy.
Checklists: Standard steps for certificates, binders, endorsements, and renewals.
Read-back: Confirm key details (named insured, effective dates, limits) verbally or in writing.
Data validation: Use required fields, formats, and picklists wherever possible.
Peer spot-checks: Short, regular audits catch blind spots early.
How to Display Attention to Detail Skills on Your Resume
12. Conflict Resolution
Conflict resolution is de-escalating tense moments, aligning on facts, and finding a path forward that’s fair, fast, and policy-compliant.
Why It's Important
Handled well, it rescues relationships, prevents churn, and protects reputation—one conversation at a time.
How to Improve Conflict Resolution Skills
Structure the conversation, keep it human:
Listen first: Let the customer vent; summarize their concerns to show you got it.
Empathize: Acknowledge feelings before shifting to solutions.
Offer options: Provide clear choices with timelines; involve the customer in selecting the route.
Stay steady: Keep your tone calm and professional; reset if things heat up.
Follow up: Confirm the resolution and timing in writing; close the loop.
How to Display Conflict Resolution Skills on Your Resume
