Technical Lead, Underwriting

Role Overview:

As the Technical Leader and Domain Architect for the Pre-Underwriting and Underwriting Division of our Specialty Commercial Lines Insurance Company, you will play a crucial role in driving innovation, efficiency, and technical excellence within the division. You will be responsible for overseeing the technical aspects of underwriting processes, ensuring alignment with business objectives, and leveraging technology to optimize operations and enhance decision-making capabilities

Role Summary:

The underwriting value stream encompasses the processes involved in evaluating, assessing, and pricing insurance risks before a policy is issued. This value stream is critical as it determines the terms and conditions of insurance coverage, as well as the premiums charged to policyholders. It includes; Submission Intake, Risk Assessment and Preliminary Underwriting, Data Gathering and Analysis, Rating, Underwriting Terms and Pricing, Negotiation and Policy Issuance.

As the Technology Lead for the Underwriting value stream, you will be responsible for designing the software architecture of the underwriting domain and managing the quality of technology delivery of our development teams through ensuring the use and implementation of technology best practices, standards, patterns, and reference architectures. You will supervise and assist with the design and development of domain-level roadmaps and evolve the architecture strategy for the Underwriting function across all countries and lines of business. Working closely with the enterprise architecture and strategy teams you will be pivotal in the enablement of future underwriting strategy.

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide strategic direction and technical leadership to the underwriting division, guiding the implementation of innovative solutions to improve efficiency and effectiveness to enable growth.
• Define and maintain the technical architecture roadmap for underwriting systems and processes, ensuring scalability, reliability, and security. Collaborate with enterprise architecture and cross-functional teams to define technology roadmaps aligned with business goals and objectives.
• Identify opportunities to streamline underwriting workflows through automation, digitization, and integration of data and analytics.
• Collaborate with risk management teams to ensure underwriting processes comply with regulatory requirements and industry best practices.
• Lead the design, development, and implementation of technical solutions to support underwriting workflows, including rating engines, data analytics platforms, and decision support systems.
• Lead and inspire a team of developers and technical professionals, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and excellence.
• Stay up to date on emerging technologies, industry trends and competitor activity, providing thought leadership, insight into a vision of the possible, recommending and driving adoption of relevant advancements.
• Develop and maintain a deep understanding of the underwriting domain, including industry trends, regulations, and business challenges
• Design and architect scalable, secure, and robust systems that meet the unique requirements of specialty insurance underwriting processes.
• Develop and maintain a comprehensive understanding of the existing technology landscape, identifying opportunities for improvement and optimization.
• Foster strong relationships with internal and external partners, ensuring alignment between technology and business strategies.
• Manage and enhance software/data architecture best practices, standards, patterns, and reference architectures as part of the wider architecture team.
• Supervise and assist with the design and development of domain-level roadmaps.
• Collaborate with business, operations, and technology stakeholders to ensure the efficient and effective utilization of technology.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives and innovation to enhance underwriting processes, optimize efficiency and improve decision quality.
• Engage with 3rd party suppliers including software vendors, ensuring that changes delivered are in line with standards
• Collaborate with the IT infrastructure team to ensure a robust and secure IT infrastructure that supports underwriting processing activities.
• Work with Enterprise Architecture team to adopt governance frameworks, polices and procedures related to underwriting systems, ensuring underwriting outcomes are catered for.
• Ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of underwriting data and systems through the implementation of robust security measures and compliance with relevant regulations (e.g., data protection, security standards and privacy laws).
• Serve as a subject matter expert on underwriting technology and architecture, representing the division in cross-functional initiatives and industry forums.

Skills and Abilities

• Ability to find competitive advantage through the innovative use of new technologies to resolve business challenges, improve operational efficiency and enable business strategy
• Ability to work at pace and meet challenging timelines
• Ability to think systemically and to connect strategically complex pieces of work both current and into the future
• Excellent leadership and communication skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams, articulate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders, and influence stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to analyze complex data sets, identify patterns, and make data-driven decisions.
• Ability to stay up-to-date with industry trends and developments, and incorporate new technologies and approaches as appropriate.
• Ability to lead and manage an outsourced development team, fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation.
• Analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to translate business requirements into effective technology solutions.

Knowledge and Experience

• Proven experience in designing and implementing complex technical solutions within the insurance or financial services industry, with a strong understanding of underwriting processes and systems.
• Demonstrated expertise in defining and maintaining enterprise-level technical architectures, including experience with cloud computing, microservices, and API integration.
• In-depth knowledge of specialty insurance pre-underwriting and underwriting processes and technologies.
• Expertise in system architecture, design patterns, and software development methodologies.
• Leadership and management skills, with the ability to guide and mentor a team of internal and partner technology professionals
• A deep understanding of the insurance underwriting process and related systems, in particular AI Automation systems in submission handling, data enrichment and data science, APIs and integration, rating, pricing, policy administration, low-code (e.g. Appian), Lloyds integrations (e.g. PPL, Blueprint II, Delegated), Billing and Payments
• Knowledge of Underwriting processing systems, methodologies, and best practices.
• Experience of Broker integration and distribution processes and systems
• Knowdege of digital customer and broker engagement and experience platforms
• Thorough knowledge of regulatory requirements and compliance standards relevant to the insurance industry, with experience implementing controls and processes to ensure compliance.
• Understanding of data security, privacy, and compliance requirements.
• Awareness and experience with various methodologies and frameworks (e.g. Aglie@Scale, DSDM, SDLC).
• Experience managing 3rd party supplier and vendor contracts to measurable outcomes.

Education:

• Ideally holds Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field.
• Industry experience and qualifications on systems and development languages
• Relevant industry certifications (e.g., TOGAF, CISSP, PMP) preferred.