About the role
About the role
We are looking for a Director, Life Underwriting to lead our underwriting production function, with a strong emphasis on team performance, people development, and operational excellence. This role is accountable for ensuring consistent, high-quality underwriting output while building and developing a high-performing, scalable team that meets production targets, turnaround time (TAT), and service level agreement (SLA) commitments.This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who can balance strategic oversight with day-to-day operational rigor, and who is equally comfortable coaching underwriters as they are managing dashboards and production metrics. You will be a champion of AI-enabled ways of working, continuously looking for ways to remove manual effort, shorten cycle times, and raise the productivity of every team member.
Duties and Responsibilities:
- UW Production & Quality:
- Own underwriting production output, ensuring volume and quality targets are met
- Identify and recommend automation opportunities (straight-through processing, AI-assisted case review) to increase throughput without compromising quality
- Partner with Underwriting Auditors to track audit findings and drive corrective action
- Ensure decisions align with guidelines, risk appetite, and regulations
- People Development:
- Lead and grow a team of underwriters and supervisors/managers
- Oversee onboarding/training programs and build career development pathways
- Drive a coaching culture and strong team retention
- Performance Management:
- Establish clear, measurable performance standards for underwriters and supervisors across productivity, set productivity targets, quality standards, TAT, and compliance
- Drive performance against TAT/SLA targets across case types
- Build reporting to track real-time production and SLA performance
- Resolve issues causing breaches; coordinate with Sales/Ops/Claims on escalations
- Conduct regular performance reviews, using audit findings and production data to identify trends and root causes of underperformance
- Lead structured, constructive conversations on performance gaps, including formal Performance Improvement Plans where warranted
- Ensure consistency in performance evaluation standards across teams, especially in distributed/cross-geography setups
- Recognize and reward high performers to reinforce a strong performance culture alongside accountability
- Team & Org Leadership:
- Build and scale teams as business needs grow
- Manage capacity planning against volume forecasts
- Ensure consistency in UW practices across distributed teams
- Foster a culture of continuous improvement, experimentation, and openness to new technology
- Stakeholder management:
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Key UW point of contact for Sales, Operations, Compliance, and Engineering
- Represent UW in cross functional meetings; influence stakeholders on process changes using data
Qualifications and Skills:
- 15+ years in Life Insurance Underwriting, with strong people management experience
- Proven track record managing production to standards at scale
- Proven experience managing large teams (80/100+ members).
- Experience building/leading UW teams (direct and/or cross-geography)
- Strong technical UW knowledge, data-driven decision-making, and stakeholder influencing and communication skills
- Bachelor's degree required; UW certifications (LOMA, FALU) are preferred
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