Head of Underwriting

Company Overview

Details about the company, including its industry and culture, were not provided.

Job Summary

The Head of Underwriting is responsible for overseeing end-to-end underwriting delivery across individual and group life business. This role ensures quality, turnaround time (TAT), and risk selection align with board-approved guidelines while managing reinsurer relationships and leading the underwriting team towards achieving profitable growth.

Responsibilities

• Reinsurance Management: Manage reinsurer relationships, especially for high-net-worth and non-standard business; negotiate rates and terms on a case-by-case basis, coordinating with Actuarial and Risk on treaty updates, retention limits, and pricing decisions.
• Underwriting Operations & Auto-Underwriting: Ensure applications are underwritten according to board-approved guidelines within defined TATs for medical and non-medical cases; build and refine auto-underwriting rules to enhance speed and straight-through processing.
• Quality & Audit: Maintain underwriting quality through regular audits, training, and corrective actions on error trends.
• TPA Management: Manage Third Party Administrator (TPA) relationships for medical tests and reports, resolve escalations, and ensure adherence to Service Level Agreements (SLA) for turnaround and quality.
• MIS & Regulatory Reporting: Ensure timely and accurate Management Information System (MIS) reports for internal stakeholders and regulators based on defined frequency.
• Channel & Customer Service: Resolve sales channel escalations promptly; hold regular reviews to enhance service levels and customer experience.
• Projects & Process Improvement: Lead automation and digitization projects, review policies/guidelines based on Change Management, and support User Acceptance Testing (UAT) for system enhancements.
• Team Management: Lead underwriting managers and underwriters, approve recommendations, conduct quality checks, and develop capabilities through training.
• Regulatory & Risk Compliance: Ensure 100% compliance with Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) and internal guidelines; timely closure of audit points and embedding new regulations into practice.
• Claims Support: Provide underwriting and medical inputs to Claims for investigating contestable and high-value claims.
• Product Development: Contribute underwriting, claims, and reinsurer experience inputs to the Product team for new product design and pricing.

Qualifications

• Education: MBBS or a postgraduate degree in a Medical/Pharma field.
• Experience: 15-20 years of experience in life, health, and general insurance underwriting, including team management.
• Preferred Qualifications: Additional qualifications such as Fellow of the Academy of Life Underwriting (FALU), LOMA (Life Office Management Association), or III (Insurance Institute of India) are preferred.

Preferred Skills

• Strong leadership and coaching abilities.
• Effective communication skills.
• Business and customer focus.
• Planning and organizational skills.
• Teamwork and collaboration.
• Orientation towards change and innovation.
• Strong ownership of results and problem-solving capabilities.
• Creativity in developing solutions.

Experience

15-20 years of relevant experience in underwriting within life, health, and general insurance, with a strong emphasis on team management.

Environment

Details about the typical work setting, location, and physical or environmental conditions were not provided.

Salary

Salary information was not specified.

Growth Opportunities

Potential career progression within the company was not mentioned.

Benefits

Details about offered benefits were not provided.