Head of Insurance

Valiant Finance; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working model

Parental leave

Dog-friendly office

Company-wide events

Job summary

Valiant Finance is seeking a Head of Commercial Insurance to build and lead its insurance function as an authorised representative. You will write business from day one while shaping systems, processes and a growing team to scale the function.

You will work with business owners who already trust Valiant and help them understand and cover the risks that matter to their business. This role blends hands-on client work with team-building and strategic development.

Qualifications

• 5+ years as a commercial insurance broker or account executive with SMB clients.

Responsibilities

• Sell and advise: provide asset insurance to customers whose car or equipment finance is brokered by the Sales team.

Skills

Commercial insurance

Account management

Team leadership

New business

RG146 compliance

AFSL authorisation

Salesforce CRM

Risk assessment

Tools

Salesforce

Job description

Valiant Finance is an award-winning FinTech startup on a mission to simplify business lending. Our cloud-based platform helps thousands of Australian small businesses compare and apply for loans from over 90 of the country's leading lenders. Our platform doesn't just power our own services – it also drives the commercial lending capabilities for some of the world's most recognised brands.

Our global Enterprise technology arm provides embedded finance experience and orchestration infrastructure to enterprise clients. We pride ourselves on building and delivering category-leading tech products across the US, Australia and the UK for top-tier global businesses. We have a strong growth agenda and are always looking for top talent to join the pursuit of our vision to unleash the economic potential of every idea!

The role

We're hiring our first Head of Commercial Insurance to build and lead Valiant's commercial insurance function as an authorised representative. This is a player-coach role: you'll write business yourself from day one, while shaping the systems, process and team that will enable the function to scale.

You'll work with business owners who already trust Valiant with their finance, and help them understand and cover the risks that matter to their business.

What you'll do

Sell and advise

• Provide asset insurance to customers whose car or equipment finance is being brokered by our existing Sales team
• Run needs-based conversations with business owners to understand their operations, assets and exposures, then recommend cover that fits.
• When appropriate, cross sell commercial insurance clients across classes such as business packs, public and products liability, professional indemnity, management liability, cyber, commercial motor and fleet, and trade and equipment cover
• Place risks with insurers and underwriting agencies, negotiate terms and manage renewals, endorsements and claims support.

Build the function

• Design the end-to-end insurance workflow to fit within Valiant's existing ecosystem: lead intake, quoting, placement, binding, renewals and claims handoff.
• Build and manage relationships with insurers, underwriting agencies and any broker network or AFSL partner.
• Work with product, engineering and operations to remove friction and cut time-to-quote and time-to-bind.
• Build your own team as the book grows: you'll start as a hands-on individual contributor, then help define the roles, hire, train and coach the brokers and support staff who join you, shaping the team's structure and culture from the ground up.
• Set up the reporting that tracks revenue, retention and pipeline.

Stay compliant

• Meet all general insurance obligations, including disclosure, general vs personal advice, anti hawking, duty of disclosure and complaints handling.
• Keep complete, accurate client records in the CRM.

What you'll bring

Must have

• 5+ years as a commercial insurance broker or account executive with a book of SMB clients, ideally including time in a team leader or head of insurance role.
• A proven record of generating new business revenue and growing it year over year.
• RG146 compliance for general insurance (Tier 1)
• Ability to be appointed as an Authorised Representative under an AFSL
• Strong working knowledge of commercial classes and the Australian insurer and underwriting agency market.
• A consultative style: you start with what the business is worried about, not what you want to sell.
• An eye for process: you notice where deals stall and fix it.

Nice to have

• Experience in a B2B sales role outside insurance, such as SaaS, media or data.
• Experience building or leading a small team.
• NIBA membership or a QPIB designation.
• Familiarity with broking platforms and a CRM such as Salesforce.
• An understanding of business finance, especially asset and equipment finance.

Benefits & Culture

• The chance to build a new department from the ground up in a large and growing business
• Embrace your need for work-life balance with our hybrid working model
• Celebrate the joy of starting a family with parental leave
• Bring your furry friend to hang out in our brand new, dog-friendly office
• Company-wide events designed to honour and celebrate all the outstanding achievements of our amazing team

Most importantly, we're looking for someone who is ready to embody our core values:

• "Get S#!t Done"
• Thrive in the Pride
• Be customer champions