Work Comp Claims Supervisor

UFG is currently hiring for a Workers' Compensation Claims Supervisor to be a team-oriented leader responsible for developing a high-performing team and coaching individuals to drive consistent, timely, and high-quality outcomes.  This role supports the best overall resolution of workers’ compensation claims through strong leadership, collaboration, and hands-on technical guidance across multiple jurisdictions.  This includes partnering with technical leadership/leadership peers to design and implement individualized development plans for claims specialists with varying experience and competency levels, identifying barriers to success, and creating strategies to maximize individual and team contributions.  The supervisor monitors performance trends, quality trends, and workload patterns, and provides coaching, feedback and reinforcement to support effective claims practices, proper file documentation, and ongoing skill development.

The role maintains accountability for performance management of a diverse group of workers’ compensation claim specialists, including hiring, onboarding, tentation, recognition, and reward practices, including salary administration within budget.  The supervisor is responsible for perpetuating technical knowledge across the team through deliberate mentoring, cross-training, and succession planning to ensure depth of expertise across jurisdictions, claim types, and complexity levels. The supervisor leads team communication and change management, fostering a culture of collaboration engagement, and shared ownership.  In partnership with the Claims Director and/or Claims Manager, this leader identifies process improvement opportunities, implements solutions and tools that enable claims specialist empowerment and consistency, and removes operational barriers impacting outcomes.

This people-focused leader must have strong workers’ compensation technical acumen and working knowledge of multi-state regulations, benefit systems, medical management, return-to-work strategies, litigation practices and compliance requirements.  The supervisor may occasionally manage individual claims or assist with high-exposure, complex, litigated, or sensitive matters to ensure appropriate strategy, timely escalation, and accurate reserving.  The Workers’ Compensation supervisor collaborates with the Claims Director in establishing team goals and metrics and is responsible for facilitating, reinforcing, and aligning team members’ individual goals to organizational priorities.  The role may also include oversight of TPAs and key vendors, including service expectations, quality audits, and performance management.  Ultimately this leader ensures regulatory compliance, consistent claim handling in line with Best Practices, and effective resolution strategies across multiple jurisdictions while promoting a constructive culture where team members contribute meaningfully to shared success. 

Essential Duties & Responsibilities: 

As a member of the claim’s leadership team, the Workers’ Compensation Claim Supervisor supports operational excellence and develops a high-performing team by:   

• Delivering a quality product and high level of service to support equitable, timely, and defensible resolution of workers’ compensation claims ensuring we deliver on our promises and maintain a strong customer, injured employee, and employer experience.
• Building an inclusive and constructive team culture where individuals are inspired to provide their maximum contribution, are accountable to best practices, and support one another through collaboration, peer learning, and shared ownership of outcomes.
• Leading and developing a team of 10-15 direct reports (or as assigned) including Workers’ Compensation claim specialists with varying experience, skills, authority levels, and jurisdictional knowledge and responsibilities, ensuring balanced workloads and appropriate complexity alignment.
• Encouraging innovation, critical thinking, and collaboration to drive continuous improvement in claim outcomes, cycle time, accuracy, injured employee experience, and cost containment.
• Owning all aspects of performance management including routine 1:1s, goal setting, coaching plans, corrective action when needed, and salary administration, partnering with our HR Business partner to ensure consistency, equity, and compliance.
• Providing day-to-day leadership and communication, including team huddles, collaboration routines, training reinforcement, workload planning, and barrier removal, ensuring clarity of expectations and alignment to organizational priorities.
• Partnering with Claims Excellence, Learning & Knowledge, and Corporate Claims to identify and execute opportunities for standardization, innovation, technical development and continuous improvement across workers’ compensation handling practices.
• Collaborating with the Director and/or Specialization Manager &/or Director of Claims Litigation to develop and execute strategies for specialization, caseload segmentation (med-only v lost-time), litigation handling, catastrophe/volume response, and resource allocation across jurisdictions.
• Hiring, retaining, and developing talent aligned to our culture and technical expectations, including perpetuation planning, succession development, and identification of team members with leadership potential.
• Coaching and developing team members through workers’ compensation technical guidance, including (but not limited to):
  • Compensability decisions and timely investigation
  • Benefit accuracy and compliance with jurisdictional requirements
  • Medical management strategy and treatment direction
  • Return-to-work practices and collaboration with employers
  • Claim strategy documentation and action plans
  • Settlement evaluations (including MSA considerations when applicable)
  • Litigation and defense counsel management strategies
• Assigning appropriate authority level and file complexity based on skill, tenure, results, and demonstrated technical capability, ensuring escalations occur at the right time and align with reserve/settlement authority expectations
• Ensuring adherence to claim best practices and compliance requirements, including accurate and timely application of reserving philosophy and expectations, and strict attention to multi-state rules around:
  • Reporting and filing requirements
  • Benefit rates and calculations
  • Timeliness standards (payments, notices, forms)
  • Documentation expectations
  • Claim handing and communication standards
• Promoting fiscal responsibility and expense awareness, including management of internal/external costs such as:
  • Medical and bill review leakage
  • Nurse case management utilization
  • Defense counsel spend and litigation management
  • Expense allocation and budget alignment
• Building and maintaining relationships with key internal and external partners, including underwriting, risk control, premium audit, claims advocacy partners, agents, policyholders, and employers, occasionally participating in agency visits, claims reviews, presentations, and stewardship activities as needed.
• Acting as a workers’ compensation subject matter expert (SME) or identifying appropriate team members as SMEs to support organizational initiatives, training, process refinement, change implementation, and continuous improvement efforts.
• Overseeing third-party administrators (TPAs) and workers’ compensation vendors when assigned, including performance monitoring, escalation support, service expectations, audit/quality review processes, and accountability for timely/appropriate resolution.

Job Specifications:

Education: 

• HS diploma or equivalent required.
• 4-year college degree preferred.

Certifications/Designations: 

• Industry certifications such as AIC, SCLA of the AEI, CPCU, or WRP (WC) are preferred.
• Must have or be willing to work to obtain within 3 years post-hire, CPCU designation (or other advanced designation as agreed upon with leader).
• Meet the appropriate state licensing requirements (or obtain required licensing).

Experience: 

• 5+ years of Workers’ Compensation insurance industry experience.
• 3+ years of claims handling experience in multiple jurisdictions.
• Formal or informal leadership or mentorship experience desired.

Working Conditions:

• General office environment.
• Occasionally this job requires working irregular hours, evenings, and weekends with occasional overnight travel.
• Occasionally the job requires work in the field with exposure to heat, cold, noise, dust, smoke, and soot.
• This leader deals with large amounts of company money and is charged with the responsibility to handle wisely.

Knowledge, skills & abilities: 

• Excellent people & communication skills, including collaboration.
• Adaptable & Resilient.
• Ability to coach others to successful outcomes, including successful adoption of change.
• Ability to assess skills of individual team members and to implement plans to develop skills and to share knowledge.
• Ability to appropriately empower others via delegation.
• Ability to motivate and inspire others to achieve desired outcomes.
• Ability to analyze data to identify trends and to resolve problems.
• Strong understanding of legal, regulatory and compliance requirements and of the legal process.
• Ability to adjust to varied jurisdictions and legal environments.

Pay Transparency Statement:

UFG Insurance is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The base salary range for this position is $103,221 - $136,105 annually, which represents the typical range for new hires in this role. Individual pay within this range will be determined based on a variety of factors, including relevant experience, education, certifications, skills, internal equity, geography and market data. 

In addition to base salary, UFG Insurance offers a comprehensive total rewards package that includes:

• Annual incentive compensation
• Medical, dental, vision & life insurance
• Accident, critical Illness & short-term disability insurance
• Retirement plans with employer contributions
• Generous time-off program
• Programs designed to support the employee well-being and financial security.

This pay range disclosure is provided in accordance with applicable state and local pay transparency laws.