Senior Manager: Commercial Underwriting | Sandton
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.
- Support the overall underwriting strategy by developing and delivering operational plans and outcomes for a large portion of the business.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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. Leverage all available information from our partners, the industry and internally to ensure we are constantly reviewing the underwriting processes, systems and protocols with a view to improve efficiencies and to ensure best practice.
- 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. Undertake technical underwriting audits. Develop and manage business rules around when audits are required and adhere to underwriting guidelines and standards by managing audits.
- Ensure that business objectives and personal delivery aligns to and meets the TSW principles.
- 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. Articulate and communicate key deliverables and business context to the team.
- Lead the team through required business processes, systems and knowledge. Ensure development plans for the team are created, contracted and monitored.
- Revise coaching needs and role profiles to enable customer focused context and expectations.
- Identify and manage stakeholders up to top management level and manage internal and external stakeholder relationships (Brokers; Reinsurance brokers; Management colleagues). Find out their needs/issues/concerns and reacting to these by leading and coordinating the development of stakeholder engagement plans to support the communication of business information and decisions.
- Manage and report on the performance of the underwriting area; set appropriate performance objectives for direct reports and hold them accountable for achieving these; take appropriate corrective action where necessary to ensure the achievement of annual business objectives.
- Manage all aspects of staff resourcing, succession planning, management and development ensuring the right people are in place to support service delivery, achieving production and performance targets at all times.
- Align performance management contract to overall business drivers and customer experience expectations.
- Hold monthly team meetings and ensure that actions are recorded and executed.
- 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. Coach and mentor others to support the development of the organization's talent pool.
- Revise coaching needs and role profiles to customer focused context and expectations.
- Provide technical product input to staff at various levels to enable others to improve performance and fulfill personal potential.
- Act as subject matter expert in an area of expertise, policy, regulation, or operational management for the team and beyond in the function. Maintain external accreditations and in-depth understanding of current and emerging technologies, external regulation, and industry best practices through continuing professional development, attending conferences, and reading specialist media.
- Set and lead execution of a complex reporting plan, creating strategies and templates to report data in a meaningful way. Create, present, and communicate high-impact data and analytics insights and recommendations to critical internal and external stakeholders.
- Conduct monthly statistical analyses (loss ratio, multi-claimants and claims trends analyses) and engage underwriting (policy admin) to implement appropriate proposed corrective measures.
- Monitor implementation of remedial measures.
- Prepare and contribute effectively to forums and committees where represented.
- Established expert in the discipline and acts as the organizations authority for the skill area
- Good knowledge of short-term industry and commercial underwriting at a senior level.
- Apply expertise to serve as the organizational authority on achieving full compliance with applicable underwriting rules and regulations in management and/or operations.
- Use comprehensive knowledge and skills to work independently and provide guidance and training to others to develop, monitor, interpret and understand policies and procedures, while making sure they match organizational objectives.
- Apply comprehensive knowledge and skills and provide guidance and training to others to review and create relevant, lucid and effective reports.
- Provide guidance and training to others to analyze data trends for use in reports to help guide decision making.
- Use a comprehensive understanding of numerical concepts to perform mathematical operations such as report analysis and provide guidance and training to others.
- Use comprehensive knowledge and/or skills and provide guidance and training to others to identify, assess, prioritize and manage risks.
- Apply comprehensive knowledge and provide guidance and train to others to use clear and effective verbal communications skills to express ideas, request actions and formulate plans or policies.
- Use comprehensive knowledge and skills and provide guidance and training to others to plan, organize, prioritize and oversee activities to efficiently meet business objectives.
- Support business processes with comprehensive understanding and effective use of standard office equipment and standard software packages, while also providing guidance and training to others.
- Proficient in MS Office.; General Underwriting Systems..
- Use comprehensive knowledge and skills to communicate with other people while providing guidance and training to others to speak in a clear, concise and compelling manner.
- Use comprehensive knowledge and skills, while providing guidance and training to others on how to help the organization by obtaining consensus between two or more internal or external parties who may have different interests.
- Apply concepts of knowledge / skill and provide technical guidance when required.
- 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.
- 10 or more years experience in short-term insurance (mainly MMIII and Assets All Risks wordings, BI product experience.
- Short-term insurance industry - commercial underwriting experience.
- 6 or more years experience of planning, managing and organizing resources within short / medium timescales within the overall policy framework.