What an insurance claims clerk costs in the US
The wage BLS measured across 214,260 jobs, what an employer pays on top of it, the pay in every state, and which of the job's core tasks already show up in AI use.
Medians for the whole US. Your own cost depends on where you hire, the benefits you offer and the hours worked.
- Median wage
- $49,230
- Hourly wage
- $23.67
- Loaded per hour
- $29.48
- Middle half earns
- $44,270 to $60,490
- Jobs in the US
- 214,260
Wage × 1.2455 for benefits and payroll taxes, from BLS.
An insurance claims clerk in the US is paid a median $49,230 a year, $23.67 an hour, across 214,260 jobs. With benefits, a small employer pays about $61,320. Of its 10 core tasks, 3 showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026, and in every one Claude mostly did the task rather than assisting.
The work, task by task
The 10 core tasks O*NET lists for insurance claims and policy processing clerks, most important first, and how each showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026. The bar splits those conversations between Claude doing the task and Claude helping a person do it.
- 01Prepare insurance claim forms or related documents, and review them for completeness.
- 02Calculate amount of claim.Claude.ai: 53% did the task, 47% helped
- 03Post or attach information to claim file.API: 100% did the task, 0% helped
- 04Transmit claims for payment or further investigation.
- 05Contact insured or other involved persons to obtain missing information.
- 06Review insurance policy to determine coverage.
- 07Process and record new insurance policies and claims.
- 08Organize or work with detailed office or warehouse records, using computers to enter, access, search or retrieve data.Claude.ai: 77% did the task, 23% helped · API: 97% did the task
- 09Provide customer service, such as limited instructions on proceeding with claims or referrals to auto repair facilities or local contractors.Claude.ai: 58% did the task, 42% helped
- 10Correspond with insured or agent to obtain information or to inform them of account status or changes.API: 98% did the task, 2% helped
3 of 10 tasks appear in the Claude.ai sample of the Anthropic Economic Index for May 2026, and 2 more only in its sample of API traffic, where businesses run Claude inside their own software. A task without a row had too few conversations for Anthropic to publish, which is not the same as none. Shares are of all sampled Claude.ai conversations, so small figures are normal: 0.84% of every conversation that month was about this occupation.
Pay by state
The median annual wage in each state and DC, and the same wage fully loaded. New Hampshire pays the most, $60,650; Alabama the least, $38,140. BLS publishes no figure where its sample is too small, which leaves 2 gaps here.
| State | Median wage | Fully loaded | Middle half | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $38,140 | $47,500 | $35,140 to $48,580 | 2,110 |
| Alaska | $48,740 | $60,710 | $37,330 to $53,940 | 40 |
| Arizona | $50,530 | $62,940 | $44,590 to $52,770 | 8,350 |
| Arkansas | $45,220 | $56,320 | $39,540 to $48,070 | 1,500 |
| California | $56,800 | $70,740 | $47,560 to $63,230 | 23,470 |
| Colorado | $58,660 | $73,060 | $49,330 to $64,750 | 1,380 |
| Connecticut | $59,760 | $74,430 | $50,510 to $72,040 | 2,430 |
| Delaware | $49,990 | $62,260 | $47,170 to $58,090 | 720 |
| District of Columbia | Not published | · | · | · |
| Florida | $47,130 | $58,700 | $39,700 to $58,480 | 15,920 |
| Georgia | $46,590 | $58,030 | $42,160 to $58,500 | 6,370 |
| Hawaii | $47,420 | $59,060 | $44,720 to $57,140 | 380 |
| Idaho | $47,200 | $58,790 | $43,220 to $62,120 | 580 |
| Illinois | $48,440 | $60,330 | $45,950 to $60,320 | 9,060 |
| Indiana | $49,240 | $61,330 | $44,080 to $62,120 | 5,190 |
| Iowa | $46,430 | $57,830 | $42,340 to $53,040 | 2,820 |
| Kansas | $47,960 | $59,730 | $45,540 to $56,560 | 800 |
| Kentucky | $48,330 | $60,200 | $48,030 to $59,020 | 3,030 |
| Louisiana | $46,800 | $58,290 | $37,640 to $49,740 | 1,740 |
| Maine | $58,890 | $73,350 | $48,200 to $72,410 | 1,710 |
| Maryland | $47,070 | $58,630 | $37,740 to $61,170 | 1,200 |
| Massachusetts | $52,910 | $65,900 | $47,550 to $61,150 | 4,820 |
| Michigan | $47,860 | $59,610 | $40,750 to $58,780 | 6,410 |
| Minnesota | $58,030 | $72,280 | $50,860 to $60,310 | 3,580 |
| Mississippi | $43,840 | $54,600 | $36,030 to $49,700 | 1,540 |
| Missouri | $46,010 | $57,310 | $36,590 to $56,050 | 4,510 |
| Montana | $50,890 | $63,380 | $44,290 to $60,380 | 360 |
| Nebraska | $48,490 | $60,390 | $43,300 to $58,590 | 2,520 |
| Nevada | $48,300 | $60,160 | $43,680 to $56,060 | 2,880 |
| New Hampshire | $60,650 | $75,540 | $49,230 to $75,440 | 820 |
| New Jersey | $59,810 | $74,490 | $49,930 to $65,860 | 5,000 |
| New Mexico | $41,700 | $51,940 | $37,540 to $49,220 | 920 |
| New York | $57,790 | $71,980 | $48,480 to $64,880 | 8,120 |
| North Carolina | $48,130 | $59,950 | $44,830 to $59,870 | 6,570 |
| North Dakota | $48,390 | $60,270 | $41,980 to $51,720 | 550 |
| Ohio | $48,380 | $60,260 | $46,870 to $58,840 | 11,160 |
| Oklahoma | $48,650 | $60,590 | $39,580 to $61,340 | 1,530 |
| Oregon | $50,890 | $63,380 | $47,010 to $59,500 | 2,640 |
| Pennsylvania | $49,420 | $61,550 | $44,690 to $60,320 | 7,020 |
| Rhode Island | Not published | · | · | 710 |
| South Carolina | $44,650 | $55,610 | $37,380 to $49,860 | 4,110 |
| South Dakota | $45,610 | $56,810 | $37,020 to $49,810 | 1,020 |
| Tennessee | $45,720 | $56,940 | $37,370 to $50,330 | 5,470 |
| Texas | $49,880 | $62,130 | $44,520 to $62,180 | 24,470 |
| Utah | $47,120 | $58,690 | $37,200 to $57,280 | 1,880 |
| Vermont | $49,260 | $61,350 | $47,500 to $58,590 | 390 |
| Virginia | $46,430 | $57,830 | $37,730 to $55,960 | 5,950 |
| Washington | $60,220 | $75,000 | $49,700 to $69,010 | 3,730 |
| West Virginia | $44,740 | $55,720 | $37,690 to $49,020 | 1,330 |
| Wisconsin | $49,170 | $61,240 | $46,090 to $60,380 | 5,140 |
| Wyoming | $46,870 | $58,380 | $38,560 to $49,030 | 170 |
The same benefits ratio applies in every state, because BLS does not publish benefit costs by business size for each state. The middle half is the 25th to 75th percentile wage.
Where the numbers come from
Every figure is copied from a public file. The only arithmetic is the loaded cost: the wage times 1.2455.
- Wages
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, occupation 43-9041 (Insurance Claims and Policy Processing Clerks). Annual figures are the hourly wage times 2,080 hours, as BLS computes them, so they already include pay for paid leave.
- Fully loaded
- BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (2026 Q2), private businesses with 1 to 49 workers: $37.64 an hour in total compensation over $27.88 in wages plus $2.34 in paid leave gives 1.2455. Paid leave sits in the denominator because the annual wage already pays it.
- Tasks
- O*NET 31.0 core tasks for 43-9041.00, the ten most important by their importance rating. A few occupations list fewer core tasks.
- AI use
- Anthropic Economic Index, release of June 2026, conversations from May 2026. "Did the task" is Anthropic's automation share, where the user directs Claude to do the work; "helped" is augmentation, where the user works with Claude to learn, check or iterate.
- Not measured
- What a particular business pays, and whether an AI system can do a task well. The AI figures count conversations about a task, not jobs replaced.
This page 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. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. AI use data from the Anthropic Economic Index by Anthropic, under CC BY. Wage and benefit data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
What would an AI system cost for this work?
Put $61,320 beside the running cost of a system doing the tasks above, with the build counted in year one.
BLS wages May 2025 · O*NET 31.0 · Anthropic Economic Index