Senior Manager : Commercial Underwriting | Sandton

Are you a seasoned Commercial Underwriting professional seeking a new opportunity to excel?

A reputable Financial Services company is on the lookout for a talented Senior Manager to lead their Commercial Underwriting team.

The successful candidate will oversee a team of underwriters, design, implement and manage a technical underwriting framework for the company's Business Insurance (BI) that fosters superior risk selection, streamlined processing, loss ratio management and underwriting profitability.

Responsibilities:

1. Underwriting: Provide integrated long-term solutions and strategies for a significant area of responsibility. Make authoritative decisions about technical or professional underwriting and business enhancement solutions that would significantly improve business performance.
2. Introduce underwriting rules on the acceptance of business. Resolve escalated underwriting complaints and escalated underwriting opinions on claims. Manage and contribute to the renewal of BI's reinsurance programme in line with business strategy. Ensure optimal placement of facultative cases.
3. Operations Management: Support the overall underwriting strategy by developing and delivering operational plans and outcomes for a large portion of the business.
4. Product & Solution Development: Take responsibility for developing and delivering a major part of the organization's product development program. Manage a medium-sized specialist team.
5. May also be responsible for managing the definition, development and delivery of a significant product or service, ensuring alignment with customer requirements. Review and enhance BI products accordingly (addressing gaps and competitively). Undertake market opportunity assessment for BI products and comparative analysis on key competitors' products. Assist the Actuarial team to formulate and develop a comprehensive rating/pricing methodology for BI non-motor.
6. Risk Management & Analysis: Manage and evaluate individual risks for acceptance where potential high-risk scenarios exist or where there are changes to a client's claims behaviour. Determine underwriting processes and minimum risk acceptance criteria for BI's.
7. Underwriting Policy Development & Implementation: Develop a comprehensive underwriting framework for a significant area of the business. Take full responsibility for creating underwriting procedures and monitoring their implementation within underwriting. Manage and monitor adherence to set mandates through technical audits and controls as set in the underwriting framework.
8. Operational Compliance: Lead and ensure that business activities within an area of responsibility comply with relevant external regulatory codes and with internal policies and procedures to minimize business risk and protect the reputation of the organization. Ensure that business objectives and personal delivery align with the TSW principles.
9. Leadership and Direction: Set and communicate the underwriting strategy and its relationship to the organization's mission, vision and values; clarify the actions needed to implement it within the area of responsibility; motivate people to commit to these and to doing extraordinary things to achieve the organization's business goals. Lead the team through required business processes, systems and knowledge.
10. Ensure development plans for the team are created, contracted and monitored.
11. Stakeholder Engagement: Identify and manage stakeholders up to top management level and manage internal and external stakeholder relationships.
12. Performance Management: Manage and report on the performance of the underwriting area; set appropriate performance objectives for direct reports and hold them accountable for achieving these. Manage all aspects of staff resourcing, succession planning, management and development ensuring the right people are in place to support service delivery.
13. Organizational Capability Building: Evaluate the capabilities of staff within the department to identify gaps and prioritize development activities. Implement the organization's formal development frameworks within the area of responsibility.
14. Personal Capability Building: Act as subject matter expert in an area of expertise, policy, regulation, or operational management for the team and beyond in the function.
15. Insights and Reporting: Set and lead execution of a complex reporting plan, creating strategies and templates to report data in a meaningful way.
16. Technical Competencies: Conduct monthly statistical analyses (loss ratio, multi-claimants and claims trends analyses) and engage underwriting (policy admin) to implement appropriate proposed corrective measures.

Education:

Grade 12 / SAQA Accredited Equivalent. Relevant Degree in Underwriting or Mathematics or similar. RE5. FAIS recognized qualification. FIISA, AIISA or Diploma in Insurance or equivalent. Business Analysis certificate or similar.

Experience:

10 or more years experience in short-term insurance. Short-term insurance industry – commercial underwriting experience. 6 or more years experience of planning, managing and organizing resources within short / medium timescales.