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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Underwriting Support Administrator

💰 $ - $

InsuranceUnderwritingAdministrationRisk Management

🎯 Role Definition

The Underwriting Support Administrator provides critical administrative, data and process support to underwriting teams in commercial and personal lines. This role ensures accurate submission intake, documentation, policy issuance and renewal processing while maintaining compliance with underwriting guidelines, SLAs and regulatory requirements. The position requires strong insurance product knowledge (commercial lines, personal lines, specialty lines), expertise with policy administration systems, ACORD forms, and exceptional attention to detail to support fast, scalable underwriting operations.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Insurance Customer Service Representative
  • Policy Administrator / Clerk
  • Broker Support / Account Coordinator

Advancement To:

  • Senior Underwriting Support Specialist
  • Underwriting Technician
  • Assistant Underwriter / Underwriter

Lateral Moves:

  • Claims Support Analyst
  • Policy Services Team Lead
  • Risk Management Analyst

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Serve as the primary intake point for new underwriting submissions and renewal paperwork, triaging packets, verifying completeness against underwriting checklists, and routing to the appropriate underwriter or underwriting team while tracking SLAs.
  • Prepare and maintain detailed submission files (electronic and physical) that include ACORD forms, financials, loss runs, broker notes and supporting documentation required for underwriter review and risk assessment.
  • Perform initial review of applications and supporting documents to identify missing information, inconsistencies, exposures, and potential underwriting issues; proactively communicate gaps to brokers, agents or internal teams to secure required clarifications.
  • Enter, update and maintain policy, exposure and client data accurately in the company’s policy administration system, rating engines and CRM, ensuring data integrity for binding, billing and reporting functions.
  • Process policy endorsements, amendments, cancellations and reinstatements in accordance with underwriting instructions and corporate procedures, including accurate premium calculations and system updates.
  • Generate and issue quotation documents, binders, cover notes and policy contracts, ensuring compliance with underwriting approvals, authority levels and delegated bind limits.
  • Assist underwriters with mid-market and commercial risk file preparation by pulling historical policy documents, extracting loss history, and compiling required underwriting packages for complex submissions.
  • Support the underwriting decision-making process by producing standard and ad-hoc reports, exposure summaries, premium allocations and renewal analysis to help underwriters evaluate risk and pricing.
  • Coordinate insurer and reinsurer documentation, including reinsurance placement support, fac/rewrite documentation, and ensuring timely submission of facultative requests when applicable.
  • Manage renewal workflow and timelines — prepare renewal quotes, gather updated exposures and schedules, obtain updated loss runs, and follow up with brokers and clients to secure renewals within established deadlines.
  • Reconcile premium, commission and fee calculations with brokers and accounting teams, escalate discrepancies and facilitate adjustments to support accurate billing and financial reporting.
  • Maintain underwriting checklists, SOPs and process documentation to promote consistent execution of underwriting support tasks and to onboard new support staff efficiently.
  • Monitor underwriting portals, broker email boxes and digital submission channels, ensuring rapid response to broker inquiries and timely processing of electronic submissions and attachments.
  • Execute routine and periodic audits of underwriting files and system entries to ensure compliance with internal guidelines, regulatory requirements and quality assurance metrics.
  • Support underwriting authority and delegation programs by preparing documentation for delegation approvals, monitoring delegated authority usage and ensuring underwriter sign-offs are documented.
  • Facilitate communications between underwriting, claims, actuarial and broker partners to ensure a unified approach to client service, risk handling and issue resolution.
  • Track performance metrics and KPIs for underwriting support operations — submission turnaround, error rates, SLA compliance — and present findings to underwriting managers with recommended process improvements.
  • Participate in cross-functional projects to implement policy administration system upgrades, digital intake workflows, and automation initiatives that reduce manual tasks and improve data quality.
  • Provide day-to-day mentoring and practical training to junior administrators and temporary staff to ensure consistent service levels and knowledge transfer within the underwriting support team.
  • Escalate potential regulatory, compliance or coverage exposure issues to underwriting management and compliance teams and assist in preparing documentation required for external audits or regulatory inquiries.
  • Maintain up-to-date knowledge of product, coverage and endorsement language for assigned lines of business, supporting underwriters and brokers with standard wording interpretations and referral to underwriting counsel when required.
  • Facilitate client and broker onboarding tasks, including collecting KYC documentation, verifying entity details and ensuring broker of record and commission structures are properly documented in system records.
  • Assist in the preparation of renewal and new business submission packets for underwriting committees and pricing review boards, including executive summaries, risk highlights and recommended actions.
  • Support catastrophe, large loss and unusual exposure workflows by compiling exposure inventories, retroactive policy history and coordinating with catastrophe modelling and analytics teams as needed.

Secondary Functions

  • Participate in continuous improvement initiatives to standardize submission templates, ACORD usage and naming conventions aimed at improving automation and downstream processing.
  • Support ad-hoc data requests from underwriting leadership for portfolio analysis, concentration monitoring and underwriting appetite reviews.
  • Collaborate with operations, IT and data teams during policy admin system testing, UAT, and workflow redesign to ensure underwriting requirements are met and data flows are validated.
  • Assist in maintaining a centralized knowledge base of underwriting guidelines, endorsement matrices and frequently asked questions for brokers and internal staff.
  • Provide backup support to policy services and customer service teams during peak periods, including responding to client and broker inquiries about coverages, policy status and documentation.
  • Coordinate periodic training sessions and refreshers for brokers and internal stakeholders on submission requirements, digital portal usage and new product rollouts.
  • Compile and distribute weekly exception reports highlighting incomplete files, authority breaches and renewal lags for manager review and action planning.
  • Support compliance teams during regulatory filings and investigations by extracting underwriting files, producing requested documentation and facilitating timely responses.
  • Act as a liaison with claims teams to gather claims history, loss narratives and supporting documentation necessary for underwriting consideration on renewals or new submissions.
  • Assist in preparing marketing and client-facing materials, such as binders or policy summaries, ensuring accuracy of terms and coverage descriptions prior to distribution.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Proficient with policy administration systems and rating engines (e.g., Guidewire, Duck Creek, Insurity) for data entry, policy issuance and endorsements.
  • Strong ACORD form knowledge and ability to produce, read and validate ACORD 125, 126, 80, and other industry-standard forms.
  • Advanced Microsoft Excel skills (pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, conditional formatting) for reporting, reconciliation and exposure analysis.
  • Experience using CRM systems, document management platforms and broker portals for submission intake and communication logging.
  • Familiarity with insurance product types (commercial property, general liability, commercial auto, professional liability, cyber, surety) and common endorsements.
  • Basic understanding of premium calculations, commissions, taxes, and policy finance/billing processes.
  • Competence with electronic signature workflows, PDF editing tools and secure file transfer solutions for broker and client communications.
  • Knowledge of regulatory requirements and compliance expectations relevant to underwriting operations (e.g., licensing, anti-money laundering KYC basics).
  • Experience preparing and distributing underwriting reports, exposure summaries and renewal analysis for underwriters and management review.
  • Ability to utilize business intelligence tools or export data for analysis (Power BI, Tableau, SQL querying basics preferred).

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional attention to detail with proven ability to maintain accuracy across high volume, repetitive tasks.
  • Strong oral and written communication skills to interact with brokers, clients, underwriters and cross-functional teams professionally.
  • Excellent time management and organizational skills with the ability to prioritize competing tasks and manage renewal pipelines to meet SLA targets.
  • Problem-solving mindset and the ability to escalate appropriately while proposing workable administrative solutions.
  • Customer-service orientation with a proactive approach to follow-up and issue resolution.
  • Collaborative team player who can work across underwriting, claims and operations to achieve business outcomes.
  • Adaptability and comfort working in fast-paced environments undergoing process change or system upgrades.
  • Confidentiality and integrity in handling sensitive client and policyholder information.
  • Initiative to identify process inefficiencies and participate in continuous improvement and automation efforts.
  • Resilience under pressure and capacity to manage peak workload periods with consistent quality.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • High school diploma / GED with 2+ years of relevant insurance or administrative experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Risk Management, Insurance or related field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Risk Management & Insurance
  • Business Administration / Management
  • Finance / Accounting
  • Information Systems (for policy admin systems knowledge)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 2 to 5+ years of insurance industry experience in underwriting support, policy administration or broker services.

Preferred:

  • 3+ years supporting commercial underwriting or specialty lines, with demonstrable experience using policy administration systems (Guidewire/Duck Creek/Insurity), ACORD forms, and producing underwriting submission packages.
  • Prior exposure to renewal management, endorsement processing, and cross-functional coordination with claims, actuarial and finance teams.
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