---
title: "Claims Adjuster, Examiner, and Investigator"
description: "Review settled claims to determine that payments and settlements are made in accordance with company practices and procedures. Confer with legal counsel…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/claims-adjuster-examiner-and-investigator"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Claims Adjuster, Examiner, and Investigator

**Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-1031 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-1031.00

Review settled claims to determine that payments and settlements are made in accordance with company practices and procedures. Confer with legal counsel on claims requiring litigation. May also settle insurance claims.

Also advertised as: Claims Adjuster; Claims Analyst; Claims Examiner; Claims Representative; Claims Specialist; Corporate Claims Examiner; Field Claims Adjuster; General Adjuster.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $78,000 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $37.50/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $48,850 to $117,040, with the middle half between $61,160 and $98,030
- **Total US employment:** 324,230
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -5.1% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 21,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 18/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 324,230 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $48,850 |
| 25th | $61,160 |
| 50th (median) | $78,000 |
| 75th | $98,030 |
| 90th | $117,040 |
| Mean (average) | $80,470 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $101,150 | $92,037 | 360 |
| NJ | $95,690 | $87,946 | 9,650 |
| MD | $95,560 | $91,045 | Not published by BLS |
| CA | $91,790 | $82,903 | 24,290 |
| CT | $88,330 | $85,252 | 3,190 |
| AK | $87,670 | $85,650 | 220 |
| NY | $87,130 | $80,735 | 17,330 |
| RI | $86,520 | $84,591 | 1,150 |
| VT | $83,970 | $85,720 | 280 |
| NH | $83,890 | $80,536 | 880 |
| MA | $83,740 | $79,182 | 5,070 |
| OR | $81,640 | $78,985 | 2,950 |
| WA | $80,700 | $75,411 | 6,180 |
| AL | $79,710 | $89,740 | 4,040 |
| HI | $79,080 | $71,923 | 900 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/claims-adjuster-examiner-and-investigator/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/claims-adjuster-examiner-and-investigator.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 356,100 in the 2024–2034 base year to 337,900 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 18,200 jobs, or -5.1%. Declining: -5.1% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 21,100 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Long-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 55.8% |
| High School Diploma | 13.1% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 12.0% |
| Some College Courses | 11.9% |
| Doctoral Degree | 4.0% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 2.6% |

## What the work involves

- Examine claims forms and other records to determine insurance coverage.
- Interview or correspond with claimants, witnesses, police, physicians, or other relevant parties to determine claim settlement, denial, or review.
- Review police reports, medical treatment records, medical bills, or physical property damage to determine the extent of liability.
- Analyze information gathered by investigation and report findings and recommendations.
- Adjust reserves or provide reserve recommendations to ensure that reserve activities are consistent with corporate policies.
- Verify and analyze data used in settling claims to ensure that claims are valid and that settlements are made according to company practices and procedures.
- Refer questionable claims to investigator or claims adjuster for investigation or settlement.
- Interview or correspond with agents and claimants to correct errors or omissions and to investigate questionable claims.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Written Comprehension — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Conventional (C), Enterprising (E), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 6.23 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.77 |
| I — Investigative | 3.53 |
| S — Social | 2.61 |
| R — Realistic | 1.23 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 80.6 |
| ESFJ | 72.8 |
| ISTJ | 71.9 |
| ISFJ | 68.3 |
| ENTJ | 66.6 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Insurance Claim and Policy Processing Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/insurance-claim-and-policy-processing-clerk) — median $49,230
- [Eligibility Interviewer, Government Programs](https://nuecareer.com/careers/eligibility-interviewer-government-programs) — median $54,210
- [Customer Service Representative](https://nuecareer.com/careers/customer-service-representative) — median $44,770
- [Insurance Underwriter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/insurance-underwriter) — median $81,370
- [Tax Examiner and Collector, and Revenue Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/tax-examiner-and-collector-and-revenue-agent) — median $62,370
- [Compliance Officer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/compliance-officer) — median $80,730
- [Compensation, Benefit, and Job Analysis Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/compensation-benefit-and-job-analysis-specialist) — median $78,210
- [Insurance Sales Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/insurance-sales-agent) — median $62,280
- [Fraud Examiner, Investigator and Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fraud-examiner-investigator-and-analyst) — median $81,100
- [Appraiser and Assessor of Real Estate](https://nuecareer.com/careers/appraiser-and-assessor-of-real-estate) — median $67,960

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/claims-adjuster-examiner-and-investigator