Manager, Life Underwriting (Remote)

Guardian Life; Salem (OR); Remote; USD 95,000 - 156,000; Full time

Job summary

Guardian Life is seeking a senior life underwriter leader who balances operational discipline with innovation. You will provide expert judgment on highly complex cases and coach underwriters across teams to improve turnaround times and mortality outcomes.

You will leverage analytics, pilot new underwriting technologies, and ensure ethical, compliant decisions while collaborating with product, distribution, and technology teams.

Qualifications

• Extensive life underwriting expertise with authority to adjudicate complex/high-value cases.
• Minimum 5 years of life underwriting experience with team leadership.
• Experience with automated underwriting platforms (RHO, PIA) and quality control.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management; ability to collaborate with reinsurers/vendors.
• Ability to foster collaborative team culture, coach underwriters in digital tools.
• Commitment to ethical decision-making, regulatory compliance, and sustainable practices.

Responsibilities

• Provide expert judgment on highly complex/escalated cases, ensuring guideline consistency.
• Oversee complex case adjudication during peak volumes with analytics use.
• Lead, develop, and set priorities for underwriter team with SLAs.
• Track mortality, placement, cycle time, and referral rates using dashboards.
• Pilot/validate new underwriting technologies and vendor solutions.
• Coach and upskill underwriters in analytics and digital workflows.
• Negotiate appeals using professional judgment and business sense within guidelines.
• Communicate decisions clearly to field force and home office.

Skills

Life underwriting leadership

Team leadership & coaching

Analytical thinking

Stakeholder management

Regulatory compliance

Tools

RHO (Random Holdouts)

PIA (Post-Issue Audits)

Job description

Fully Remote

Remote - United States

Full time

R000110401

You are

A leader who excels at balancing operational discipline with innovation. You inspire underwriters to embrace analytics and modern tools, coach for judgment and consistency on complex cases, and collaborate across product, distribution, and technology teams to improve turnaround time, mortality outcomes, and customer satisfaction.

You have

Required Qualifications

• Extensive life underwriting expertise, including authority to adjudicate complex, high-value cases and provide guidance on escalated decisions.

• Minimum 5 years of life underwriting experience, with demonstrated ability to lead teams and manage complex case decisions.

• Working knowledge of automated underwriting platforms and programs (e.g., Random Holdouts (RHO), Post-Issue Audits (PIA)); experience managing quality control.

• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills; ability to collaborate with reinsurers and vendors.

• Demonstrated ability to foster a collaborative team culture while coaching underwriters to build digital fluency and confidently adopt new tools and workflows.

• Commitment to ethical decision-making, regulatory compliance, and sustainable practices.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience using advanced analytics and visualization tools to monitor underwriting performance, uncover patterns, and inform continuous improvement initiatives.

• Familiarity with Electronic Health Record (EHR) data, GenAI-enabled tools, and behavioral economics concepts applicable to underwriting.

You will

• Provide expert judgment and oversight on highly complex and escalated cases, ensuring consistency with underwriting guidelines and mortality objectives; manage facultative referrals when appropriate.

• Oversee complex case adjudication during peak volumes, ensuring accuracy and consistency while promoting the use of analytics and modern underwriting platforms.

• Lead and develop a team of underwriters, set daily priorities, and ensure service-level adherence, consistency, and quality.

• Leverage analytics dashboards to track mortality, placement, cycle time, and referral rates; implement targeted improvements.

• Pilot and validate new underwriting technologies and vendor solutions; document business cases and measure outcomes.

• Coach, develop, and upskill underwriters in analytical thinking, digital tools, and customer-centric practices.

• Negotiate appeals with the use of professional judgment, industry knowledge & business sense to go outside the established company guidelines in order to make determinations on requests for formal changes to official decisions made previously by Life Underwriters, Senior Life Underwriters, & Life Underwriting Specialists

• Communicate with the field force and home office personnel for the purpose of acquiring necessary information, solving problems, and conveying decisions in a polite, confident, and professional manner

Salary Range:

$94,840.00 - $155,800.00

The salary range reflected above is a good faith estimate of base pay for the primary location of the position. The salary for this position ultimately will be determined based on the education, experience, knowledge, and abilities of the successful candidate. In addition to salary, this role may also be eligible for annual, sales, or other incentive compensation.

Our Promise

At Guardian, you’ll have the support and flexibility to achieve your professional and personal goals. Through skill-building, leadership development and philanthropic opportunities, we provide opportunities to build communities and grow your career, surrounded by diverse colleagues with high ethical standards.

Inspire Well-Being

As part of Guardian’s Purpose – to inspire well-being – we are committed to offering contemporary, supportive, flexible, and inclusive benefits and resources to our colleagues. Explore our company benefits at www.guardianlife.com/careers/corporate/benefits . Benefits apply to full-time eligible employees. Interns are not eligible for most Company benefits.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Guardian is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to age, race, color, creed, religion, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, marital status, disability, military or veteran status, or any other classification protected by applicable law.

Accommodations

Guardian is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. Guardian also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified job applicants (and employees) to accommodate the individual's known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless doing so would create an undue hardship. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact [e-mail] . Please note: this resource is for accommodation requests only. For all other inquires related to your application and careers at Guardian, refer to the Guardian Careers site.

Visa Sponsorship

Guardian Life is not currently or in the foreseeable future sponsoring employment-based visas (e.g., such as an H-1B). In order to be a successful applicant, you must be legally authorized to work in the United States, without the need for employer sponsorship/support now or at any time in the future.

Notice Regarding Guardian’s Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment

As part of Guardian’s job application process, Guardian may use artificial intelligence tools (“AI Tools