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:

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. Introduce underwriting rules on the acceptance of business.
• Resolve escalated underwriting complaints and escalated underwriting opinions won claims.
• Manage and contribute to the renewal of BI’s reinsurance programme in line with business strategy.
• Ensure optimal placement of facultative cases.

Operations Management:

• Support the overall underwriting strategy by developing and delivering operational plans and outcomes for a large portion of the business.

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. 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 undertake comparative analysis on key competitors’ products.
• Assist the Actuarial team to formulate and develop a comprehensive rating/ pricing methodology for BI non-motor.

Risk Management & Analysis:

• Manage and evaluate individual risks for acceptance where potential high risk scenarios exist or where there are changes to a clients’ claims behaviour.
• Determine underwriting processes and minimum risk acceptance criteria for BI’s.

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 the adherence to set mandates through technical audits and controls as set in the underwriting framework.

Operational Compliance:

• Lead and ensure that business activities within a area of responsibility comply with relevant external regulatory codes and with internal policies and procedures to minimize business risk and to protect the reputation of the organization.
• Ensure that business objectives and personal delivery aligns to and meets the TSW principles.

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. Ensure development plans for the team are created, contracted and monitored.

Stakeholder Engagement:

• Identify and manage stakeholders up to top management level and manage internal and external stakeholder relationships.

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.

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.

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.

Insights and Reporting:

• Set and lead execution of a complex reporting plan, creating strategies and templates to report data in a meaningful way.

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.