Manager, Life Underwriting (Remote)

Guardian; United States; On-site; USD 160,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Guardian is seeking a senior life underwriting leader to oversee highly complex cases and drive analytics-based improvements. You will coach a team of underwriters, manage peak volumes, and ensure adherence to mortality objectives and guidelines.

You will pilot new technologies, document business cases, and collaborate with product, distribution, and technology teams to shorten turnaround times while maintaining risk discipline.

Qualifications

• Extensive life underwriting leadership and decision authority.
• Experience guiding teams through high-value cases with consistency.

Responsibilities

• Oversee complex case adjudication and peak volume management.
• Leverage analytics to improve mortality metrics and cycle times.
• Lead and develop underwriters, setting priorities and SLAs.
• Pilot new underwriting tech and measure outcomes.
• Coach on analytics, digital tools, and customer-centric practices.

Tools

RHO

PIA

Job description

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.

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.

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