Head of Underwriting Quality - Life Insurance

New Vacancy - Head of Underwriting Quality (Life)City of London | Hybrid InsurerI am currently recruiting for a leading insurer who are seeking a Head of Underwriting Quality to join their growing business.This role will be responsible for the strategy, development, management and monitoring of referred-business underwriting philosophy and quality. This includes responsibility for managing, analysing, innovating and reporting on: evidence used for underwriting; underwriter accreditation, underwriting QA, post-issue sampling; reinsurance audits and retrospective claims underwriting.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and lead the underwriting strategy, with a focus on referred-business quality and alignment with underwriting philosophy.

• Oversee the Underwriting Quality Assurance (QA) function to ensure consistent quality and compliance with underwriting guidelines and reinsurance agreements.
• Manage the framework and processes for granting operational underwriting authorities.
• Lead post-issue underwriting sampling and reporting to monitor and mitigate risks related to misrepresentation and underwriting processes.
• Maintain and develop relationships with reinsurers, including communication of changes to underwriting philosophy, coordination of reinsurer audits, and input into reinsurance tenders and risk reporting.
• Direct the strategy and procurement of medical evidence used in underwriting.
• Collaborate with underwriting operations to uphold best practices, ensuring alignment with philosophy and efficient use of resources (e.g., limiting unnecessary medical evidence, use of tele-underwriting).
• Ensure the Underwriting Intranet is current, providing clear, centralized guidance on underwriting philosophy.
• Work closely with the underwriting automation team to maintain consistency in underwriting philosophy across manual and automated processes.
• Partner with business leaders and risk teams to identify and resolve underwriting process risks, providing insight and driving effective solutions.
• Offer retrospective underwriting opinions in support of claims and share referral analysis with stakeholders.
• Provide expert advice on complex or bespoke underwriting cases from Operations or Distribution teams.
• Manage high-level engagement with reinsurers, as well as internal stakeholders including actuarial, data science, claims, distribution quality management, and product development teams.