What insurance claims adjusters are paid in 2026, and why so few postings say
Nearly nine in ten US insurance claims adjuster postings state no pay. Of 2,881 collected January 1 to August 31, 2026, 335 stated a figure, with a coverage-adjusted median of $61,876, or $29.75 an hour. This page gives the quartiles, pay by title, the BLS comparison and the method.
$61,876
National Median
The median insurance claims adjuster salary in US job postings is $61,876 a year in base pay, corrected for which states disclose, across postings collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. Only 335 of the 2,881 postings collected in that window stated a figure, a disclosure rate of 11.6 percent. The unadjusted median of those 335 postings is $70,000.
One title accounts for most of the silence. Independent insurance claims adjuster makes up 2,125 of the postings, and not one of them states a salary, so the figures here describe the postings under the other five titles that do state pay. Only the senior rung has enough postings that name a level to publish, so this page measures the role as a whole.
How much does an insurance claims adjuster make?
An insurance claims adjuster earns a median of $61,876 a year in base pay, coverage-adjusted, across US postings collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. That works out to $29.75 an hour, $1,190 a week or $5,156 a month. The hourly figure is the annual median divided by 2,080 working hours, an equivalent for comparison that does not come from posted hourly rates. The middle half of postings runs from $55,750 to $85,750 a year, or $26.80 to $41.23 an hour.
| Measure | Annual | Hourly equivalent | Monthly equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25th percentile | $55,750 | $26.80 | $4,646 |
| Median | $61,876 | $29.75 | $5,156 |
| 75th percentile | $85,750 | $41.23 | $7,146 |
Coverage-adjusted base pay from 335 US postings that stated pay, collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. Hourly is annual divided by 2,080; monthly is annual divided by 12.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median for claims adjusters, examiners, and investigators at $78,000 a year, or $37.50 an hour, in its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025. The two numbers measure different things. BLS surveys everyone employed in the occupation, in every industry and at every stage of tenure, and its category also takes in claims investigators. PayScope's figure is the base pay employers advertised in 2026 postings, and 95 of its 335 postings are for trainees.
State re-weighting lowers the median from $70,000 to $61,876
The as-posted column is what the 335 postings that stated pay say. The coverage-adjusted column re-weights them so each state counts in proportion to its share of all 2,881 collected postings. For insurance claims adjusters that correction takes $8,124 off the median.
| Measure | As posted | Coverage-adjusted |
|---|---|---|
| 25th percentile | $55,750 | $55,750 |
| Median | $70,000 | $61,876 |
| 75th percentile | $90,000 | $85,750 |
Base pay, annualized, 335 US postings that stated pay, collected January 1 to August 31, 2026.
The correction is this large because disclosure is so uneven by state. California states pay on 72 of its 169 postings, 42.6 percent, while the rest of the country states pay on 263 of 2,712, or 9.7 percent. So California supplies about one in five of the postings with pay but only about one in seventeen of all collected postings, and its median of $72,588 sits above the national figure. Re-weighting shrinks California back to its share of the market, and the 2,125 independent adjuster postings, none of which states pay, count toward each state's share as well.
The 25th percentile does not move at all. It is $55,750 in both columns, which is also the median of the claims adjuster trainee title, where 95 of 97 postings state pay and the middle half runs only from $55,250 to $61,500. With trainees making up 95 of the 335, that cluster pins the bottom of the range in place.
Levels add one usable figure. 120 of the 335 postings name a level, and only senior clears PayScope's 30-posting floor: 70 senior postings state a median of $98,300, with a middle half of $90,000 to $114,115 and 3 to 5 years of experience asked. Entry (27 postings with pay), mid (21) and lead (2) are too thin to publish, and the 215 postings that name no level have a median of $66,000.
Only 11.6% of claims adjuster postings state pay, and one title explains most of it
335 of the 2,881 collected postings carried a usable annual figure and 2,546 carried none. That means fewer than 1 in 8 insurance claims adjuster postings state pay. The independent insurance claims adjuster title alone contributes 2,125 postings with no pay stated, and without it 335 of the remaining 756 postings state pay, or 44.3 percent.
| Posted title | Postings | Postings with pay | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Independent insurance claims adjuster | 2,125 | 0 | No pay stated |
| Claims examiner | 312 | 127 | $87,500 |
| Claims adjuster | 218 | 74 | $74,200 |
| Workers compensation claims adjuster | 108 | 18 | Below floor |
| Claims adjuster trainee | 97 | 95 | $55,750 |
| Claims adjuster senior | 21 | 21 | Below floor |
Base pay as posted, before coverage adjustment, US postings collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. Medians are shown only for titles with at least 30 postings that stated pay.
Claims examiner is the best-paid title with enough data to publish, at a median of $87,500 on 127 postings, $13,300 above the plain claims adjuster title. The trainee title sits at the other end at $55,750. The $31,750 between those two titles is wider than the $30,000 middle half of the role's coverage-adjusted range.
Across all roles, postings in the thirteen states with pay-transparency laws in force state pay 53.9 percent of the time against 33.8 percent elsewhere, at medians about 10 percent higher. Re-weighting by state usually moves a role's median by about 1 percent. For claims adjusters it moves it 11.6 percent, one of the largest shifts of any role in PayScope's 2026 data, because of the California imbalance described in the figures section.
California is the only state where this role clears the 30-posting floor: 72 of its 169 postings state pay, at a median of $72,588 and a middle half of $61,506 to $90,000. Texas, Georgia and every other state have fewer than 30 postings with pay, so none of them gets a figure here.
When close to nine postings in ten carry no figure, the 335 that do may not look like the market as a whole, so treat every PayScope figure on this page as an estimate with wide error bars. If you are reading a posting with no figure on it, what a DOE listing actually means covers the phrasings employers use instead of a number.
Posted pay is 9.6% higher than in 2025
Both figures in this comparison are as-posted medians. The 2025 median was $63,850 across 1,658 postings that stated pay, collected over the same January to early September stretch of 2025 with the same titles and method. The 2026 as-posted median is $70,000 across 335, a rise of 9.6 percent, and that rise is what puts the role in the hot band of PayScope's market label. The export has no coverage-adjusted figure for 2025, so the $61,876 headline is not compared with last year, and posting counts are not compared across years because collection volume varies too much for them to mean anything.
Read the 9.6 percent with care. When fewer than one posting in eight states pay, a change in which titles disclose can move the median as much as a change in pay can. The 2026 sample holds 95 trainee postings at $55,750 and 127 claims examiner postings at $87,500, and a different balance between those two titles would give a different median.
What claims adjusters do, and a projected 5.5% decline in jobs
A claims adjuster decides whether an insurance policy covers a loss and how much the insurer should pay. O*NET OnLine describes the work through tasks like these:
- Examine claim forms and records to determine whether the policy covers the loss
- Review police reports, medical records and bills, or property damage to establish liability
- Investigate, evaluate and settle claims, and pay them within an authority limit
- Verify the data used to settle each claim
- Analyze investigation findings and report recommendations
O*NET lists reading comprehension, active listening, critical thinking, speaking, writing and monitoring as the essential skills for the occupation. BLS Employment Projections Table 1.2 gives a high school diploma or equivalent as the typical entry-level education, with no related work experience and long-term on-the-job training.
BLS projects employment of claims adjusters, examiners, and investigators to decline 5.5% from 2025 to 2035, from 376,100 jobs to 355,500, with about 20,900 openings a year (BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2). Because the occupation is projected to shrink, those openings all come from replacing workers who retire or move to other occupations.
Related roles and what they pay
Medians for five neighboring roles, from the same PayScope collection and method. The account manager guide counts commercial insurance account managers among its titles.
| Role | Median | Data |
|---|---|---|
| Account manager | $70,000 | Postings through Aug 31, 2026 |
| Payroll specialist | $62,500 | Postings through Aug 31, 2026 |
| Operations specialist | $57,796 | Postings through Aug 31, 2026 |
| Procurement specialist | $70,720 | Postings through Aug 31, 2026 |
| Executive assistant | $79,934 | Postings through Aug 31, 2026 |
Six posted titles roll into this page: claims adjuster, claims examiner, claims adjuster trainee, independent insurance claims adjuster, workers compensation claims adjuster and claims adjuster senior.
How these figures were produced
The source is PayScope's own collection of US job postings from January 1, 2026, deduplicated by posting id. Figures are dated August 31, 2026, the last fully collected month; the collection query ran to early September, so a few September postings are included. 2,881 postings matched the six titles above, and 335 stated a usable annual pay figure. The other 2,546 stated no pay, and no posting that stated pay was dropped as unusable.
Coverage adjustment re-weights the 335 disclosing postings by state so that each state counts for its share of all 2,881 collected postings. For this role it lowers the median from $70,000 to $61,876 and the 75th percentile from $90,000 to $85,750, and leaves the 25th percentile at $55,750. Every figure is base pay as posted and annualized, with bonus, commission, overtime and equity excluded. The figures are regenerated monthly on the same method.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an insurance claims adjuster make?
$61,876 a year at the median, coverage-adjusted, from 335 US job postings that stated base pay and were collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. The unadjusted median of the same postings is $70,000. Half of them sit between $55,750 and $85,750 a year after adjustment.
How much do insurance claims adjusters make per hour?
$29.75 an hour at the coverage-adjusted median of $61,876 a year, from US postings collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. That is the annual figure divided by 2,080 working hours, an equivalent for comparison that does not come from posted hourly rates. The middle half of postings runs from $26.80 to $41.23 an hour on the same basis.
What do entry-level and senior claims adjusters make?
Senior postings state a median of $98,300 a year on 70 postings that stated pay, collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. The entry rung has only 27 such postings, below PayScope's 30-posting floor, so it has no published figure. The closest entry-level signal is the claims adjuster trainee title, with a median of $55,750 on 95 postings that stated pay.
Do these claims adjuster figures include bonus or overtime?
No. They are base pay as the employer posted it, annualized, with bonus, commission, overtime and equity excluded. Total earnings can run higher than a posted base, and the postings give no figure for the difference.
Do insurance adjusters get paid per claim?
The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook says some claims adjusters work as public adjusters, often hired by claimants who prefer not to rely on the insurance company's adjuster, and that they are paid a percentage of the settled claim. The postings behind this page add nothing on this: none of the 2,125 independent insurance claims adjuster postings collected January 1 to August 31, 2026 stated pay. The $61,876 median describes base pay in postings under the other five titles.
How much do claims adjusters make in California, Texas or Georgia?
California postings state a median of $72,588 a year, from the 72 of its 169 postings that stated pay between January 1 and August 31, 2026. Texas, Georgia and every other state have fewer than 30 postings with pay, so this page publishes no figure for them. The national coverage-adjusted median is $61,876.
What is the highest-paid claims adjuster title?
Claims examiner, at a median of $87,500 a year on 127 US postings that stated pay, collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. The plain claims adjuster title has a median of $74,200 on 74 postings, and the trainee title $55,750 on 95. These are as-posted base pay figures by title.
Is claim adjusting a dying field?
BLS projects employment of claims adjusters, examiners, and investigators to fall 5.5 percent from 2025 to 2035, from 376,100 jobs to 355,500, in its Employment Projections Table 1.2. Over ten years that is a loss of about 2,060 jobs a year, set against about 20,900 projected openings a year, which come from replacing workers who leave.