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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Underwriting Risk Director

💰 $ - $

RiskUnderwritingInsuranceFinancial Services

🎯 Role Definition

The Underwriting Risk Director is a senior risk and underwriting leader responsible for defining and executing underwriting risk strategy, governance and controls across the portfolio. This role partners closely with underwriting operations, actuarial, finance, product, compliance and analytics teams to set underwriting policy and appetite, design and oversee risk models, deliver portfolio performance oversight, and ensure regulatory and capital adequacy requirements are managed effectively. The Underwriting Risk Director drives data-driven decision making, leads cross-functional programs to mitigate persistent risk drivers, and elevates underwriting discipline through process improvement, pricing strategy and robust model governance.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Underwriter / Regional Underwriting Manager with strong portfolio performance and risk controls background
  • Head of Portfolio Analytics, Model Risk, or Underwriting Analytics
  • Actuarial Lead or Pricing Manager focused on underwriting performance and reserving

Advancement To:

  • Head of Underwriting Risk / Global Head of Underwriting Risk
  • Chief Underwriting Officer
  • Chief Risk Officer (CRO) or Chief Operating Officer with risk remit

Lateral Moves:

  • Product Risk / Product Strategy Lead
  • Portfolio Risk Manager / Credit Risk Director
  • Head of Model Governance or Head of Pricing Analytics

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Define and articulate the underwriting risk framework and risk appetite for the book(s) of business, including limits, thresholds, exception processes and escalation pathways to align underwriting with enterprise risk strategy.
  • Lead the development, implementation and ongoing refinement of underwriting policy, delegation matrices and endorsement rules to ensure consistent risk selection and disciplined acceptance across distribution channels.
  • Oversee portfolio performance monitoring and reporting — establish KPIs, monthly/quarterly risk dashboards, vintage and cohort analyses, loss ratio tracking, and emerging risk indicators to inform senior leadership decisions.
  • Drive the design, validation, governance and lifecycle management of underwriting models (credit scoring, pricing, propensity, claims frequency/severity) in collaboration with data science, actuarial and model risk teams, ensuring documentation, versioning and independent validation.
  • Partner with actuarial and finance to translate loss forecasts, reserving assumptions and capital modelling outputs into underwriting strategy, pricing actions and product adjustments to protect profitability and capital adequacy.
  • Own the underwriting risk appetite calibration and stress testing program — design scenario analysis, reverse stress testing, and capital-impact assessments to quantify potential downside and inform contingency plans.
  • Lead remediation programs for persistent underwriting weaknesses, including root-cause analysis, remediation roadmaps, governance of corrective actions and tracking of outcomes against milestones.
  • Collaborate with product development and distribution to embed risk-by-design principles into new product launches, pilot programs and pricing strategies to ensure appropriate risk selection and returns.
  • Manage the exceptions and referral processes for high-risk underwriting decisions, setting governance, allowable authority levels and transparent documentation to reduce uncontrolled exposures.
  • Maintain regulatory readiness and ensure compliance with local and international regulations (e.g., Solvency II, IFRS9/IFRS17 where relevant, Basel frameworks, consumer protection rules), preparing regulatory submissions and responding to supervision requests.
  • Oversee reinsurance strategy and placement coordination by analyzing retention levels, treaty structures and counterparty risk to optimize capital efficiency and limit volatility.
  • Establish and maintain model governance processes specific to underwriting analytics, including model inventory, performance monitoring, recalibration frequency and MOR (Model Operational Risk) controls.
  • Lead portfolio remediation and acquisition due diligence for M&A, strategic partnerships or distribution agreements — assess risk transfer, contractual outcomes and integration risks from an underwriting perspective.
  • Manage and coach a multidisciplinary team of senior underwriters, risk analysts, modelers and product specialists — set objectives, performance metrics, succession plans and training programs to build underwriting capability.
  • Drive data strategy for underwriting (data quality, lineage and enrichment) by partnering with data engineering and analytics to ensure reliable inputs for scoring, pricing and monitoring models.
  • Design and run periodic audit and control assessments of underwriting operations, remediation tracking and implementation of audit recommendations to strengthen first-line risk management.
  • Influence senior stakeholders and the board through clear, succinct risk reporting, scenario narratives and recommended actions to secure support for material underwriting changes.
  • Coordinate cross-functional crisis and contingency planning for emerging risk scenarios (pandemic, catastrophe, economic shock) and ensure underwriting protocols for rapid response are in place and tested.
  • Implement pricing governance and approval workflows, ensuring margin adequacy and consistency of price-to-risk across channels while preserving competitiveness and regulatory compliance.
  • Oversee vendor and third-party risk for outsourced underwriting components (decisioning engines, scoring vendors, data providers), including SLAs, performance audits and contractual risk allocation.
  • Champion continuous improvement by driving automation of manual underwriting controls, straight-through-processing initiatives and digital underwriting enhancements to reduce error, increase throughput and improve risk selection.
  • Lead portfolio segmentation and propensity analysis to refine risk segmentation, referral rules and targeted risk mitigation measures such as higher retentions, endorsements or coverage adjustments.
  • Ensure robust documentation and knowledge management for underwriting policies, exceptions, model assumptions and training materials to create institutional memory and facilitate audits.
  • Serve as the escalation point for complex or precedent-setting underwriting decisions and ensure consistent interpretation and application of risk policy across regions and product lines.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc deep-dive analyses and fact-finding for executive committees and board risk sub-committees.
  • Contribute to enterprise-wide risk frameworks, linking underwriting metrics to liquidity, concentration and operational risk indicators.
  • Mentor high-potential underwriters and risk analysts through structured development programs and targeted coaching.
  • Participate in industry working groups and regulatory consultations to stay ahead of emerging underwriting risk topics and best practices.
  • Help define data requirements and partner with analytics to prioritize feature engineering for uplift in underwriting models.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Underwriting Risk Management: experience defining risk appetite, limits, and underwriting governance across multiple product lines.
  • Portfolio Risk Analytics: ability to perform cohort/vintage analysis, loss forecasting, concentration risk assessment and profitability segmentation.
  • Pricing & Profitability Analysis: strong background in margin analysis, rate adequacy testing, and price-to-risk optimization.
  • Statistical Modeling & Validation: hands-on familiarity with credit/underwriting models, scorecard development and validation techniques.
  • Model Governance & Compliance: experience maintaining model inventories, validation schedules and adhering to model risk frameworks.
  • Regulatory Knowledge: understanding of insurance and banking regulatory regimes relevant to underwriting (e.g., Solvency II, IFRS, Basel, capital calculations).
  • Reinsurance & Capital Optimization: ability to evaluate treaty design, retention decisions, and their capital impacts.
  • Data Literacy & Tools: proficiency with SQL, Excel (advanced), and familiarity with Python/R/SAS or analytics platforms for model testing and data exploration.
  • Business Intelligence & Reporting: experience building/consuming dashboards in Power BI, Tableau or Looker and translating analytics into decision-ready reporting.
  • Risk & Stress Testing: designing scenario analysis, stress tests and reverse stress testing to quantify downside and capital strain.
  • Contractual & Legal Acumen: ability to review or interpret policy wordings, endorsements, exclusions and reinsurance contract implications.
  • Project & Change Management: experience running cross-functional change programs, product implementations and process redesigns.
  • Vendor Risk Management: evaluating third-party data sources, decisioning engines and outsourced underwriting capabilities for risk and performance.

Soft Skills

  • Strategic Thinking — translate technical risk inputs into strategic underwriting direction and long-term portfolio outcomes.
  • Leadership & People Management — proven ability to recruit, develop and retain high-performing underwriting and analytics teams.
  • Stakeholder Management — influence and collaborate with senior leaders in finance, actuarial, product and compliance.
  • Communication & Storytelling — convey complex quantitative findings clearly to non-technical executives and board members.
  • Decision Quality — sound judgment in high-stakes underwriting decisions and escalation scenarios.
  • Problem Solving — diagnose root causes, synthesize multiple inputs and deliver pragmatic remediation plans.
  • Change Agent — lead cultural and operational change to elevate underwriting rigor and discipline.
  • Attention to Detail — ensure controls, documentation and model assumptions are precise and auditable.
  • Negotiation Skills — able to drive outcomes with brokers, reinsurers and third-party partners.
  • Resilience & Adaptability — operate effectively in ambiguous or fast-moving risk environments.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Finance, Economics, Actuarial Science, Statistics, Data Science, Business or related quantitative discipline.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree (MSc/MBA) in Risk Management, Finance, Actuarial Science, Data Science or related field.
  • Professional credentials such as ACAS/FCAS, FIA, CFA, FRM, or equivalent actuarial/risk certification are highly desirable.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Actuarial Science
  • Finance / Economics
  • Statistics / Mathematics
  • Data Science / Analytics
  • Business Administration / Risk Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 8–15+ years of progressive experience in underwriting, risk management, actuarial analytics or portfolio management.

Preferred:

  • Minimum 10+ years in underwriting or underwriting risk roles with demonstrable leadership experience managing teams and cross-functional programs.
  • Track record of owning portfolio performance and delivering measurable improvements in loss ratio, expense ratio or capital efficiency.
  • Experience working with model governance, regulatory reporting, and reinsurance placement.
  • Proven success partnering with technology, analytics and actuarial functions to operationalize data-driven underwriting.
  • Prior experience in multi-jurisdictional oversight or running underwriting risk for multiple product lines is a plus.
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