---
title: "Claims Litigation Manager"
description: "Manages insurance claims that have become lawsuits, directing defense attorneys, setting reserves and deciding when to settle or go to trial."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/claims-litigation-manager"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Claims Litigation Manager

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

Manages insurance claims that have become lawsuits, directing defense attorneys, setting reserves and deciding when to settle or go to trial.

Also advertised as: Litigation Claims Specialist; Complex Claims Manager; Litigation Specialist, Claims; Casualty Litigation Manager; Claims Attorney Manager.

## 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:** -5.5% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 20,900 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-litigation-manager/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/claims-litigation-manager.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 376,100 in the 2025–2035 base year to 355,500 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 20,600 jobs, or -5.5%. Declining: -5.5% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 20,900 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## 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 or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 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

- Assign and supervise defense attorneys on litigated claims
- Evaluate liability, damages and verdict risk
- Set and adjust claim reserves
- Negotiate settlements at mediations and conferences
- Approve litigation budgets and review legal bills
- Report large exposures to management and reinsurers
- Analyze trends in verdicts, venues and legal costs

## 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 | 5.21 |
| I — Investigative | 3.98 |
| 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 | 79.9 |
| ISTJ | 71.2 |
| ESFJ | 71.0 |
| ENTJ | 68.3 |
| ISFJ | 65.6 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Claims Adjuster, Examiner, and Investigator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/claims-adjuster-examiner-and-investigator) — median $78,000
- [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

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 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, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **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 31.0 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-litigation-manager