Senior Underwriter, Retail

TN United Kingdom; London; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player seeks a Senior Underwriter to drive strategic initiatives in the specialist motor insurance sector. This role offers the opportunity to leverage extensive technical expertise and collaborate with various business functions to enhance financial performance. You will be pivotal in shaping underwriting strategies, managing broker relationships, and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. If you are passionate about delivering exceptional insurance solutions and thrive in a dynamic environment, this position is perfect for you. Join a forward-thinking company committed to ethical practices and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in underwriting with a focus on motor insurance.
• Ability to analyze market dynamics and customer requirements.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of underwriting strategy and manage portfolio performance.
• Collaborate with teams to refine underwriting appetite and drive performance.

Skills

Analytical mindset

Technical knowledge of insurance products

Extensive commercial awareness

Interpersonal skills

Microsoft Excel proficiency

Presentation skills

Education

Degree in Finance, Economics, or related field

Tools

Microsoft Excel

PowerPoint

Job description

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Reporting to: Product Manager / Head of Class

Location: London

About us

IQUW is a speciality (re)insurer at Lloyd’s (Syndicate 1856) underwriting a diverse range of Property, Commercial and Speciality (re)insurance products from Cargo and Marine to Political Violence, Terror and War. We combine data, intelligent automation and human expertise to make smart decisions, fast. ERS is the UK's largest specialist motor insurer with an A+ rating. We recognise that for some, motor insurance is more than just a must-have; it's a way of taking care of what stands at the heart of their passion or livelihood. For those people, standard insurance isn't enough. That's why we work exclusively with motor insurance brokers to help get under the skin of the most difficult insurance risks, helping build products to meet their customer’s needs.

The role

ERS is a leading underwriter of a wide range of specialist motor insurance products. Within ERS’ strategy of being the UKs leading specialist motor insurer, our focus is on delivering sustainable, high margin growth through the provision of quality propositions to a wide range of broker partners.

The Senior Underwriter’s primary responsibilities are for the execution of our underwriting strategy and development of our underwriting appetite, working closely with the Pricing and Technology teams, as well as other stakeholders across the business including our operations teams. You will be responsible for materially contributing to the achievement of our short to medium-term financial plans through translating specialist underwriting knowledge into an implementable set of rules.

The role is highly market visible, involving extensive broker contact when communicating our strategy, managing the financial performance of existing relationships and in seeking to broaden our market penetration. Success in the role requires extensive technical expertise in our product(s) and frequent collaboration with other business functions to ensure that we leverage capabilities from across the business in delivering first class propositions to our chosen market.

Key responsibilities

1. Leading the development of the underwriting strategy for our product(s) based on your market knowledge and product expertise whilst being responsible for executing the underwriting strategy through working with the product delivery team.
2. Contributing to the management of portfolio performance through the analysis of results, execution of our selection and pricing strategies and providing recommendations that will drive continuous performance improvement, thus ensuring that we will meet or exceed our financial plans.
3. Working alongside the Product Performance Analysts within the team, providing them with direction and support to improve their knowledge and utilising their skills to support the delivery of our strategic goals.
4. Providing input to constantly refine our underwriting appetite to ensure that we take advantage of market opportunities and outperform our peers through superior risk selection and proactive management of our business mix.
5. Acting as a point of technical referral from other members of the underwriting team, brokers, and other internal functions, using your extensive risk, product and pricing knowledge to inform appropriate decisions in respect of those referrals.
6. Providing feedback to Product Managers & Heads of Class and to members of our Pricing team relating to the effectiveness of our risk pricing models to help us constantly drive enhanced sophistication and accuracy in our risk pricing.
7. Working closely with all areas of the business to ensure that we deliver a clear and seamless set of propositions to the market.
8. Understanding the risk environment in which we operate. Contribution to the identification and mitigation of the key risks which threaten the success and sustainability of our business.
9. Providing substantial contribution to our “first line of defence” activities, using audit and peer-review tools, complemented by exception reporting and performance MI, to constantly assess and monitor our underwriting activities to ensure that all business is being written in accordance with our stated underwriting authorities, agreed processes and in compliance with our regulatory and conduct standards.
10. Establishing and continually enhancing a range of business relationships with our key partners, ensuring that we understand and satisfy their needs and those of their customers.
11. Always ensuring that, we operate in a way which adheres to all legal and regulatory provisions.

We are a business which takes our stated values and behaviours seriously and are committed to always acting ethically, compliant and appropriate. The above duties and responsibilities are not exhaustive and may be varied to reflect changing business needs.

Essential qualifications, skills and experience

This role carries strategic input and financial responsibility as well as being recognized as a market leading subject matter expert in our product(s). We require our role-holders to demonstrate leadership and management capabilities and to possess the following skills, attributes and knowledge:

• The ability to collaborate with a talented team towards achieving challenging financial targets.
• Extensive technical knowledge of the product(s), including features, performance drivers, market dynamics, and customer requirements.
• An analytical mindset with comprehensive skills in Microsoft Excel.
• Gravitas and clarity of purpose to instill confidence in senior stakeholders.
• Ability to produce and present coherent PowerPoint presentations at various committees.
• Extensive commercial awareness to identify and leverage opportunities to enhance financial performance.
• Detailed understanding of pricing practices and methodologies, with experience to improve our pricing capability and provide insights on our models.
• Interpersonal skills to build and maintain valuable relationships and to communicate effectively, even in difficult conversations.
• Extensive knowledge and experience in a sophisticated underwriting control environment, focusing on continuous performance improvement.
• Knowledge of legal, regulatory, and compliance provisions relevant to the role.