SVP, Market Segment Leader

Selective Insurance; Short Hills (NJ); On-site; USD 264,000 - 342,000; Full time

Job summary

Selective Insurance, a leading U.S. property and casualty insurer, seeks a Senior Underwriting Leader in New Jersey. This role provides strategic direction for transactional underwriting, coaching teams across regions, and aligning with enterprise standards to ensure fast, high-quality risk decisions.

The position requires deep Commercial Lines underwriting experience, leadership acumen, and the ability to drive underwriter performance while mentoring staff in a complex market.

Qualifications

• Strong problem-solving ability and the capacity to make decisions under ambiguity or imperfect information.
• Excellent customer service, sales and negotiation skills.
• Strong written, verbal and presentation skills; networking and relationship building.

Responsibilities

• Provide senior underwriting leadership over teams handling referrals and consultations to align with underwriting appetite and strategies.
• Coach and mentor teams with training and knowledge transfer; ensure field visibility.
• Monitor external factors affecting market segments and guide tactics to capitalize on opportunities or mitigate risk.
• Drive adoption of underwriting strategies balancing growth with disciplined risk selection; communicate guidelines across regions.
• Engage with customers to understand operations, exposures and evolving needs.
• Collaborate with actuarial, analytics, claims, product, and compliance to inform underwriting strategy and align with business goals.
• Identify emerging risks and insights to drive portfolio growth and profitability across segments.
• Develop bench strength through structured coaching and feedback; build succession readiness.

Skills

Strong problem-solving

Decision making under ambiguity

Project management

Customer service

Sales and negotiation

Leadership

Communication skills

Education

College-degree preferred

Job description

About Us

At Selective, we don't just insure uniquely, we employ uniqueness.

Selective is a midsized U.S. domestic property and casualty insurance company with a history of strong, consistent financial performance for nearly 100 years. Selective's unique position as both a leading insurance group and an employer of choice is recognized in a wide variety of awards and honors, including listing in Forbes Best Midsize Employers in 2025 and certification as a Great Place to Work in 2025 for the sixth consecutive year.

Employees are empowered and encouraged to Be Uniquely You by being their true, unique selves and contributing their diverse talents, experiences, and perspectives to our shared success. Together, we are a high-performing team working to serve our customers responsibly by helping to mitigate loss, keep them safe, and restore their lives and businesses after an insured loss occurs.

Overview

As a senior underwriting authority, the position ensures disciplined risk selection, consistent decision-making, and alignment with enterprise underwriting standards while enabling speed and agility in front-line execution. Provides strategic leadership of the teams that support transactional underwriting through expert oversight of referrals and consultations.

The role serves as a critical bridge from corporate underwriting strategy and corporate underwriting practices to the transactional execution by underwriters in the field to elevate underwriting excellence by ensuring the delivery of high-impact guidance on complex risks and driving underwriting expectations across the organization. A core component of this leadership position is building organizational capability-coaching, training, knowledge transfer and mentoring underwriters while fostering a culture of continuous learning and accountability.

Responsibilities

• Provide senior underwriting leadership over our teams of subject matter experts that are responsible for managing transactional engagement (referrals and consultations) to coach business written to be in alignment with our broad, generalist underwriting appetite and our underwriting practices and underwriting strategies across Small, Middle Market and Large Account business segments. Able to influence proper balance between risk and market realities, as well as between internal and external pressures on profit and production
• Ensure proper daily coaching, training, mentoring and knowledge transfer by the teams as well as active visibility in the field. Delegate authority to the team and imprint on regional authority delegations
• Lead the Strategic Business Unit Leaders to monitor external factors that can impact each market segment's customers including economic, technological, social, political and environmental. Encourage their development of tactics that capitalize on opportunities or mitigate risk in support of our customers while driving our desired outcomes.
• Influence and drive adoption of underwriting strategies and practices that balance growth with disciplined risk selection in support of long-term portfolio performance by collaborating with underwriting leadership to establish, reinforce, and communicate underwriting practices, guidelines, strategies and decision frameworks across regions and market segments.
• Support your team in conducting direct external engagement with customers to fully understand their operations, exposures risk profiles, business plans and evolving needs
• Collaborate cross-functionally with actuarial, advanced analytics, claims leadership, competitive intelligence, insurance product, legal, marketing, product leadership, region leadership and teams, regulatory compliance, risk management & premium audit to inform underwriting strategy and ensure alignment with broader business objectives.
• Participate in the generation of emerging risks and actionable insights at the portfolio, line, segment, class of business, market size and regional level to drive growth and profitability across the market segments in support of diversification and breadth of appetite.
• Enhance bench strength and succession readiness through intentional talent development, structured coaching, and real-time feedback.
• Maintain a strong in-person field presence to gather input first‑hand from our regional teams, agents and insureds to successfully balance underwriting expectations with competitive intelligence, sales and marketing

Qualifications

Knowledge and Requirements

• Strong problem-solving ability; Capable of strong decision making under ambiguity or less than perfect information; Ability to explain rationale and coach 'the why'
• Managing projects; Excellent customer service; Strong sales and negotiation skills; Strong problem solving ability; Proven leadership capability
• Strong written, verbal and presentation skills; Networking and relationship building skills

Education and Experience

• College-degree preferred
• 10+ years standard Commercial Lines underwriting experience
• Technical underwriting acumen including deep and broad segment expertise

Total Rewards

Selective Insurance offers a total rewards package that includes a competitive base salary, incentive plan eligibility at all levels, and a wide array of benefits designed to help you and your family stay healthy, achieve your financial goals, and balance the demands of your work and personal life. These benefits include comprehensive health care plans, retirement savings plan with company match, discounted Employee Stock Purchase Program, tuition assistance and reimbursement programs, and 20 days of paid time off. Additional details about our total rewards package can be found by visiting our benefits page.

The actual base salary is based on geographic location, and the range is representative of salaries for this role throughout Selective's footprint. Additional considerations include relevant education, qualifications, experience, skills, performance, and business needs.

Pay Range

USD $264,000.00 - USD $342,000.00 /Yr.

Additional Information

Selective is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. That means we respect and value every individual's unique opinions, beliefs, abilities, and perspectives. We are committed to promoting a welcoming culture that celebrates diverse talent, individual identity, different points of view and experiences - and empower employees to contribute new ideas that support our continued and growing success. Building a highly engaged team is one of our core strategic imperatives, which we believe is enhanced by diversity, equity, and inclusion. We expect and encourage all employees and all of our business partners to embrace, practice, and monitor the attitudes, values, and goals of acceptance; address biases; and foster diversity of viewpoints and opinions.

For Massachusetts Applicants

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.