Trading Lead, Insurance Broking

John Lewis Partnership; City of Westminster; Hybrid; GBP 79,000 - 123,000; Full time

Job summary

A major UK retailer is seeking a Head of Trading to lead the day-to-day commercial performance of the Personal Lines Insurance Broker Portfolio. This role involves creating trading strategies, analyzing market dynamics, and ensuring the broker meets acquisition and retention targets. The ideal candidate will possess extensive industry experience and strong commercial acumen, alongside the ability to interpret financial data. The position offers a hybrid working model and a salary range of £79,500 - £122,500.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in a commercial trading, pricing, or product P&L role within an insurance broker or insurer.
• Deep understanding of the personal lines insurance market.
• Strong commercial acumen with the ability to interpret financial data.

Responsibilities

• Lead the creation of the MI and reporting suite for contribution and margin targets.
• Collaborate with pricing, marketing, and product teams for optimal pricing strategies.
• Drive commercial developments and market analysis reporting.

Skills

Commercial acumen

Analytical mindset

Interpersonal skills

Leadership skills

Job description

Apply on JLP Jobs - the official careers website for John Lewis Partnership, John Lewis & Partners, and Waitrose & Partners.

About the role

The Head of Trading will be responsible for setting up the framework for the day‑to‑day commercial performance and P&L delivery of the Personal Lines Insurance Broker Portfolio. This role leads the creation of the Trading Strategy and MI suite that will be used to optimise volume, income, and margin performance across the Home and Car products. This role will act as the commercial engine room, analysing market dynamics and competitor activity to identify trading levers, working closely with the Pricing, PCW, Insurer Development, Digital, Operations and Marketing functions, ensuring the broker achieves its acquisition and retention targets while adhering to conduct and compliance standards. This role will create the overall Trading strategy and build of the governance structure that ensures we balance short term tactical performance with strategic delivery. The role holder will furthermore support the Head of Insurance Broker with strategic aspects of the Broker build program and providing subject matter expertise and strategic analysis to ensure the build is fit for purpose on day 1 launch and is future proofed to ensure future development can be achieved efficiently and effectively.

• Salary - £79,500 - £122,500

• Contract type - This position is a 6 month Fixed Term contract

• Working pattern/flexible working - The Partnership has adopted a hybrid working approach, meaning you'll be able to work a mixture between the office and home based upon your personal needs whilst balancing the needs of the business.

• Location - This role is based at our Pimlico Head Office.

• Ideally Interviews from start of January

Key responsibilities

1.Commercial Trading and P&L Delivery

• Lead the creation of the MI and reporting suite that enables accurate and timely reporting and insight pertaining to Contribution, Income and margin targets across Home and Car insurance
• Working with the Insurer Development and Pricing teams to develop monitoring of insurer quotability and competitiveness within the panel
• Ensure that the right dashboards are in place to identify and execute trading opportunities to maximise yield, balancing volume growth against profitability constraints
• Create the optimal trading governance forums and activity, lead weekly trading meetings that provide deep‑dive analysis on variance against plan and implementing rapid corrective actions where necessary
• Create strategy documents that provide clarity and a blueprint for a successful Trading function

2. Pricing & Margin Strategy Execution

• Collaborate with pricing, marketing and product teams to create the framework to optimise pricing, conversion, retention strategies and customer outcomes
• Work closely with the Head of Partner development to create tools to feedback on net‑rate competitiveness and influence future negotiations based on live market data.

3. Market Dynamics & Competitiveness

• Drive commercial developments that leverage JLP USP’s in the market and gain rating advantage versus peers
• Review and make recommendations for external data enrichments and market analysis reporting with significant ROIs
• Support product governance and conduct reviews to maintain compliance with FCA and Consumer Duty requirements.

4. Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with the Commercial, Technology, Marketing, and Operations teams to align trading volumes with operational capacity.
• Provide insight and training support to the wider Commercial function on Trading processes and value propositions.
• Work closely with the Financial Services arm to identify cross‑selling opportunities and integrated customer journeys.

5. Leadership and Team Management

• Lead and develop a high performing Trading team, setting clear objectives and performance standards.
• Build a culture of accountability, collaboration, and commercial excellence.

Essential skills/experience you’ll need

• Extensive experience in a commercial trading, pricing, or product P&L role within an insurance broker or insurer.
• Deep understanding of the personal lines insurance market, specifically the dynamics of Price Comparison Websites (aggregators) and digital distribution.
• Strong commercial acumen with the ability to interpret financial data and manage P&L outcomes.
• Analytical mindset with the ability to interpret performance metrics and translate data into actionable trading strategies.
• Proven track record of influencing internal stakeholders to execute pricing strategies that balance risk and reward.
• Excellent interpersonal, negotiation, and influencing skills at senior stakeholder level.
• Knowledge of FCA regulatory environment, particularly Consumer Duty and product governance requirements.
• Excellent Leadership and organisational skills
• Highly motivated and results‑oriented
• A strategic thinker with an eye for detail

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The partnership

We’re the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We’re not just employees, we’re Partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world. As we look to our future, there’s never been a more exciting time to join us.

We’re ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify. Never Knowingly Undersold on price, quality and service in John Lewis and passionately serving food‑lovers in Waitrose.

As Partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and in its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through the good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect.

We all own making the Partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we’re free to be ourselves and can THRIVE. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective.

As Partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.

Important points to note:

It’s important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre‑employment vetting (which may include DBS checks for successful candidates). If required, you’ll be informed and provided with information about vetting during the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays. Any DBS checks required will be carried out by a third‑party registered body and financial probity checks may also be required for some of our roles.

We occasionally close vacancies early in the event we receive a high volume of applications, and therefore, we recommend you apply early. If you require a reasonable adjustment due to a disability which means you may need longer to complete your application please contact us as soon as possible.

We want all of our Partners to have a good work‑life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.