Legal Claims Operations Manager – Property Damage
Position: Legal Claims Operations Manager
Practice Area: Residential Property Damage / First-Party Insurance
Employment Type: Full-Time
Position Overview
We are seeking an experienced Legal Claims Operations Manager to oversee the day-to-day movement and operational management of a high-volume portfolio of residential property damage insurance claims and legal matters.
This is not a traditional legal assistant or individual case manager position. This is an operations and process-management role responsible for ensuring hundreds of active matters continuously move forward through the firm's internal claim lifecycle.
The ideal candidate has previous experience working in a high-volume property damage law firm, first-party insurance practice, public adjusting organization, or similar claims environment and understands what needs to happen at each stage of a property insurance claim.
The primary objective of this position is simple: no claim should sit without a clear next action.
Key ResponsibilitiesClaim & Case Lifecycle Management
Oversee matters as they progress through stages including:
Intake → Investigation → Inspection → Estimating → Documentation → Demand/Negotiation → Appraisal/Litigation → Settlement → Disbursement/Closure
Ensure that every active matter has:
- A clearly identified current stage
- Defined next action
- Assigned responsible team member
- Appropriate deadline or follow-up date
- Required documentation
- Identified blockers
- Escalation when necessary
The Operations Manager is not expected to personally perform every task. The responsibility is to make sure the correct person performs the correct task at the correct time.
High-Volume Claims Operations
- Monitor a large portfolio of active property damage matters.
- Identify claims that have stalled or are not progressing.
- Maintain visibility into the status and next action of every matter.
- Monitor aging within each stage of the claim lifecycle.
- Identify operational bottlenecks before they materially delay cases.
- Ensure follow-ups with carriers, opposing counsel, experts, clients, and vendors occur on schedule.
- Escalate matters requiring attorney or management intervention.
- Prioritize cases based on deadlines, settlement opportunities, claim value, urgency, and operational needs.
- Conduct regular portfolio reviews to identify matters requiring immediate attention.
Team & Workflow Management
Coordinate and hold accountable the internal teams responsible for moving matters forward, which may include:
- Attorneys
- Paralegals
- Case managers
- Claim consultants
- Public adjusters
- Estimators
- Field inspectors
- Engineers and experts
- Administrative staff
- Outside counsel and co-counsel
- Contractors and other vendors
Ensure handoffs between departments happen quickly and correctly.
The Legal Claims Operations Manager should continuously ask:
What is preventing this claim from moving forward, who owns the next step, and when will it be completed?
Process & Productivity Management
- Establish and enforce standardized claim workflows.
- Create service-level expectations for internal tasks and follow-ups.
- Monitor overdue tasks and aging cases.
- Develop escalation procedures for stalled matters.
- Improve handoffs between departments.
- Reduce unnecessary waiting time throughout the claim lifecycle.
- Identify recurring operational problems and implement solutions.
- Develop processes capable of supporting continued growth in claim volume.
- Work with management to improve automation and workflow technology.
Property Damage Claim Knowledge
The ideal candidate should understand the operational lifecycle of residential property insurance matters involving:
- Fire and total-loss claims
- Water damage
- Wind and hail
- Roof claims
- Storm damage
- Structural damage
- Contents/personal property
- Additional Living Expenses (ALE)
- Coverage disputes
- Underpaid claims
- Claim denials
- Supplemental claims
- Appraisal
- Litigation
- Settlement and recovery
The candidate does not need to be an attorney, but must understand enough about property insurance claims and litigation to recognize what should happen next and when attorney involvement is required.
Performance & Management Reporting
Develop and monitor operational KPIs including:
- Total active matters
- Claims by lifecycle stage
- Average days within each stage
- Claims without a next action
- Overdue tasks
- Claims with no recent activity
- Average claim cycle time
- Inspection turnaround
- Estimate completion time
- Demand preparation time
- Carrier response aging
- Negotiation aging
- Litigation aging
- Settlement volume
- Monthly recoveries
- Case closure rate
- Employee/team productivity
Provide leadership with clear reporting showing where cases are getting stuck and what needs management attention.
Required Qualifications
- 3+ years of experience in property insurance claims, property damage litigation, legal operations, or high-volume claims management.
- Experience managing a significant portfolio of active claims or legal matters.
- Strong understanding of the residential property insurance claim lifecycle.
- Experience working in a law firm, public adjusting company, insurance organization, restoration company, or similar property-claims environment.
- Demonstrated ability to manage workflows involving multiple departments and stakeholders.
- Strong project-management and organizational skills.
- Ability to identify bottlenecks and develop practical solutions.
- Strong understanding of deadlines, task ownership, escalation, and accountability.
- Experience using CRM, case-management, project-management, or claims-management systems.
- Strong analytical and reporting skills.
- Excellent written and verbal communication.
- Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, high-volume environment.
Strongly Preferred
- Previous management experience within a first-party property insurance law firm.
- Experience overseeing hundreds of concurrent claims or legal matters.
- Experience managing case managers, claim consultants, paralegals, or similar teams.
- Familiarity with Xactimate estimates and property damage documentation.
- Experience coordinating engineers, contractors, estimators, inspectors, and other experts.
- Experience with appraisal and property insurance litigation workflows.
- Experience developing SOPs and standardized claim processes.
- Experience building operational dashboards and KPIs.
- Experience implementing workflow automation or improving a legal/claims CRM.
What Success Looks Like
Success in this position is not measured by how many tasks the Operations Manager personally completes.
Success means:
Claims move.
Cases do not remain untouched because someone forgot to follow up. Estimates do not sit waiting for review. Inspections do not remain unscheduled. Carrier responses are followed up on. Deadlines are visible. Employees know their next priorities. Bottlenecks are identified quickly, and management knows which matters require intervention.
The successful Legal Claims Operations Manager will create an environment where every claim has an owner, every claim has a next action, and every claim is continuously progressing toward resolution.
Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate has previously worked inside a high-volume property damage law firm or claims organization and understands both the insurance claim process and operational management.
We are looking for someone who naturally sees operations as a system. When reviewing hundreds of active matters, this person should quickly be able to determine:
Where is the claim? What are we waiting for? Who is responsible? What happens next? When should it happen? And what needs to be escalated?
This position is ideal for a highly organized, process-driven leader who enjoys building systems, managing teams, solving bottlenecks, and creating accountability across a rapidly growing property damage practice.
Pay: $70,000.00 - $100,000.00 per year
Work Location: In person
