Underwriter

Ecclesiastical Insurance Group; West Stow; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 65,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working

Pension contribution 5% rising to 10%

Discretionary annual bonus

Life Assurance 4x salary

Group Income Protection up to 65%

26–27 days annual leave

Job summary

Lycetts Insurance Brokers, part of Benefact Group, is seeking an Underwriter to join our Newcastle office (regional Lycetts offices considered). You will manage renewal and new business portfolios, collaborate with brokers, and help shape new products while building strong insurer relationships.

You’ll work across sectors including Farm & Estate, Commercial, Woodlands, and more, contributing to underwriting excellence and business growth.

Qualifications

• Experience in Farm & Estate or Commercial underwriting.
• Cert CII qualification is preferred.
• Excellent communication and teamwork skills.

Responsibilities

• Manage and grow a developing renewal and new business portfolio.
• Cross-train across various binders and sectors.
• Collaborate with broking team to smooth renewals and improve processes.
• Help establish new products within underwriting and build insurer relationships.
• Provide expert advice and solutions to the broking arm.
• Lead client-centric projects and drive process automation.

Skills

Insurance underwriting

Farm & Estate underwriting

Commercial underwriting

Cert CII

Communication

Job description

Working hours: 35 hours per week, Monday to Friday

Duration: Permanent

Location: Newcastle (other regional Lycetts offices can be considered)

About the role

Lycetts Insurance Brokers, who are proudly part of Benefact Group, are looking for an Underwriter to join our Newcastle office (other regional Lycetts offices can be considered).

This is a fantastic opportunity to join Lycetts as an Underwriter within a growing team where you’ll play a key role in managing and expanding a renewal portfolio, while gaining exposure to diverse binders across multiple sectors, including (but not limited to) Farm & Estate, Woodlands, Equine, Commercial, Household, Leisure, and Livestock. You’ll collaborate closely with brokers to streamline renewals, help shape new products, and build strong relationships with insurers and colleagues, all while providing expert advice that drives business success.

Why join us?

Join a collaborative and inclusive culture that’s committed to making a difference and building a more sustainable future. Ranked amongst the UK's 15 Best Big Companies to Work For in 2025, we offer fantastic career and development opportunities within a rapidly growing, innovative Group - where all profits go to charity and good causes.

What you'll be doing

• Playing a key role in managing and growing a developing renewal and new business portfolio.
• Opportunities to cross-train across various binders and different sectors.
• Working with our broking team to ensure a smooth renewal process, reviewing and improving processes and client outcomes.
• Helping to establish new products within the underwriting team, building relationships with both insurers and our account executives/handlers.
• Offering expert advice and solutions to our broking arm.
• Working on client-centric projects, standardising and automating processes through innovative technology deployment.

What you'll need to have

• Previous insurance industry knowledge, with experience in Farm & Estate or Commercial underwriting. We are interested in hearing from underwriters with different levels of experience and can position the role around the candidate.
• An insatiable appetite to learn and a positive, solution focused mindset.
• Good communication skills with the ability to work collaboratively in a team environment.
• The ability to build and nurture co-operative and productive relationships across the broader team.

What makes you stand out

• Cert CII qualified

What we offer

• A competitive salary - let's discuss it
• Hybrid working available upon successful completion of probation
• Employer pension contribution of 5% rising to 10% after 5 years membership of the pension scheme
• Annual Bonus scheme (Discretionary based on individual and company performance)
• Life Assurance cover up to 4 x salary, and Group Income Protection scheme up to 65% of salary
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays (rising to 26 and 27 for 5 and 10 years’ service respectively)
• Career development opportunities with funded support and financial incentives for all professional qualifications.
• An Employee Assistance Programme with a wide range of benefits helping employees to stay healthy and feel supported.

Hear from the hiring manager

"The Lycetts underwriting team is working to achieve something that is extremely rare in the broking world, separating delegated authority from the broking arm of the business, and in turn developing a centre for underwriting excellence. The centre for excellence will provide underwriters of all levels the opportunity to grow and expand both personally and commercially, whilst providing a close knit support network."\

About us

The Lycetts Group has over 60 years’ experience of providing a comprehensive range of insurance, risk management and financial advice to a broad cross section of commercial and private clients. We strive to be a trusted adviser to our clients and are proud of our continued high client satisfaction scores.

Benefact Group is a unique international financial services Group made up of over 30 businesses. We are owned by a charity and have been the 3rd largest UK corporate donor over a decade*, having given away £250 million since 2014. We have ambitious plans to become the UK’s number one corporate donor, with strategic objectives in place to double the Group’s size.

We believe it’s essential to attract, empower, grow and reward talented people, offering fantastic opportunities for career and personal development. Our giving ethos, 135-year history and the diversity of what we do, has enabled us to build a culture of kindness, great ambition, and of passionate people driven to do better and be better.

At Benefact Group, we are committed to creating an inclusive culture and building an environment where each and every one of us feels valued and respected. We are a community made up of people with a range of different backgrounds, abilities, perspectives, beliefs and interests and we value the strength this brings to us as a Group. We welcome applications from everyone.

If you need any additional support during the recruitment process, then please let us know.

*Directory of Social Change’s UK Guides to Company Giving 2017-26