Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a claims specialist and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
A claims specialist is responsible for investigating a customer's claim. They focus on finding if the client is covered by the company and the stake that the company will need to pay. He/she keeps all the records of the insurance holders and making a follow up when a claim is made.
Other responsibilities of the specialist include. He/she acts as the mediator between the insurer and the person insured or whose property has been insured with the company. They gather all the information from the claimants and ensures there are no inconsistencies. They participate in the claims processing, communicating with the claimant at every stage.
Core Skills Required to be a Claims Specialist
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
A claims specialist should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Organized Workplace:
Organized Workplace is a vital characteristic that helps the business to thrive for long term due to the sense of structure and order which efficiently promotes the team spirit.
A Claims Specialist must be organized in the general organizing, planning, communication, time management, scheduling, coordinating resources and meeting deadlines to support the staff in being well structured and run the company successfully.
Negotiation Skills:
Negotiation Skills are a deliberative process by which people settle their differences through an acceptable agreement to both parties to co-exist without argument and dispute in the workplace.
A Claims Specialist must learn to resolve any disputes that arise in the workplace using the principles of fairness, seeking mutual benefit and maintaining a cordial relationship that builds a success at the workplace.
Collaborating with others:
Collaborating is willingly working with one another and cooperating in whatever task one is assigned without behaving poorly or having an attitude change that hurts others.
A Claims Specialist is meant to collaborate with all workers and management both male and female without causing frustrations or sidelining any worker or delaying their promotion from any informal conversations where most decisions are often made.
Empathy:
Empathy is the understanding of another person's condition from their perspective by placing yourself in their shoes and feeling what they are feeling.
A Claims Specialist ought to practice empathy with his staff by learning to be a good listener and understanding what his employees are going through and choosing to feel it with them through the use of imagination and accommodate them.
Attention to Detail:
Attention to Detail is the capacity to achieve a thoroughness and accuracy when accomplishing a task.
A Claims Specialist needs to have this prime characteristic and utilize it in a high performing organization that allows both the customers and staff to understand the need to be keen to all the details required to avoid massive costs for overlooked details that are common in the workplace.
Personal Drive:
Personal Drive is a combination of desire and energy in its simplest form directed at achieving a goal in whatever you have set your heart to accomplish.
A Claims Specialist needs to creatively design ways that drive the staff to carry out their work without wasting time by helping them understand and develop their self-motivation skills that assist them to take control of many different viewpoints of their life.
Using Common Sense:
Using Common Sense is the ability to see what is missing in a situation or a project and supplying it without necessarily being assigned or asked to do it.
A Claims Specialist needs to creatively train his employees always to see the missing element that is typically crucial in any workplace or project and take the opportunity to do business out of it.
Customer Service:
Customer Service is the ability to cater for the needs of the client by providing excellent customer service without compromise.
A Claims Specialist must understand that pleasing customers is directly connected to the success of the business, therefore, must create a superior customer experience culture in the company that every employee should follow in ensuring all the customers are treated as they should.
Analytical Skills:
Analytical Skills is the ability to collect and analyze information, solve problems and make decisions according to the policies and regulations of the business.
A Claims Specialist should hire employees who use clear, logical steps and excellent judgment to understand an issue from all angles before executing an action depending on the objective and the methodical approaches to benefit a company's productivity.
Product Knowledge:
Product Knowledge is an essential sales skill to understand the features of your product allowing you to present the benefits compellingly and accurately to the customer.
A Claims Specialist should ensure the teams understand the company's goods or services and can quickly take a client through them, therefore, instilling faith, trust and respect in the customers which in turn creates a positive customer experience.
Hard Skills Required to be a Claims Specialist
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
A claims specialist should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.