Underwriting Manager - AICL

Job Introduction

A leader in Motor, Home, Travel and Health Insurance; Saga offers an environment where we will do the best thing for you to develop your skills and develop your career.

This role is an important part of the AICL Underwriting team who strive to facilitate, to help and support the insurance function of the business.

The AICL Underwriting team (the team) forms part of the AICL head office group, reporting to the CEO. The team delegates day to day running of policy sales and administration to its intermediaries, subject to parameters either built into IT systems or maintained in underwriting guides. Matters outside of the delegated authorities enjoyed by the intermediaries are referred to the Team, which is a centre of excellence.

The team is led by the Head of Technical Underwriting and covers a wide range of personal lines of business, including Motor, Household, Caravan, Pet, Assistance and Legal Expenses.

The AICL Underwriting Manager’s role is new to the team, arising out of growth in the team’s span of control. In this role, you will deputise for the Head of Technical Underwriting as required to meet the needs of the business and will assume responsibility in 2 key areas:

1. Technical decision making in all matters on referral from the intermediaries, either case by case or strategic (such as audit outcomes, policy wording or underwriting guide changes).
2. Building and maintaining products in the Company’s Polaris and Internet environments.

And in return, you can look forward to all of the responsibility and involvement of an integral role, providing you with a rewarding and fast paced career with an excellent benefits package including life assurance, pension, high street and online discounts, and concessions for holidays and travel.

Role Responsibility

Technical Delivery:

• Management of daily referrals ensuring quality and accuracy of responses within SLAs.  Point of escalation, by exception, on cases when too complex for other Team members, whether policy, claim or fraud.
• Provide a point of reference and guidance on technical issues for other departments and intermediaries.
• Resolve issues arising out of errors in the distribution channels (internet, aggregators, contact centres).
• Provide quality through appropriate mentoring, training and development of less experienced team members.
• Prepare statements on behalf of AICL, and attend court when required, on complex police or local government departments eg SOCA cases or social security enquiries.
• Support the Head of Technical Underwriting as required in developing and implementing the company’s underwriting philosophy.
• Responsible for the system monthly underwriting changes in partnership with actuarial – timely, tested and accurate delivery through the Polaris product builder tool set.

Risk Control:

• Risk control through the construction of technical documents including policy wordings and associated documentation, best practice documents and underwriting guides (the documents).
• Work with intermediaries to ensure that new and existing risk assessment questioning for both call centre and web-based quotation systems are formulated to achieve business required level of risk control.

Development:

• Assist and advise AICL Head of Technical Underwriting on any regulatory, legislative, industry or environmental issues or changes that will or may have an impact on risk assessment.
• Consult with Claims management to determine responses to development in case law and how these are reflected in the documents.

Conduct of Business:

• Own the technical relationship with Third Party intermediaries.  Develop strong relationships with intermediaries through attending regular review meetings and complaint liaison meetings.
• Keep abreast of FCA compliance developments and bring these to the attention of the team so that changes to the documents or other things can be managed in a timely fashion.

Audit and Leakage:

• Develop and control an audit programme with specific emphasis on management of cost through risk selection and claim handling against the Documents and industry regulatory guidelines.
• Make clear, achievable recommendations, adequately prioritised to meet business objectives.
• Work alongside AICL and third party intermediaries’ management teams to ensure audit recommendations are implemented correctly and in a timely fashion.
• Assessment of specific areas of leakage in both operational and claim handling areas and agreement of improvement targets between AICL and these third parties.
• Identify opportunities to improve operating efficiency or effectiveness in order to minimise the cost of underwriting or claims handling.
• Report audit findings to the Head Of Technical Underwriting, and agree action plans to remedy adverse findings.
• Prepare reports on audits for the company’s TP Review Group, a subcommittee of the Audit Committee.

Other:

• Hold monthly performance reviews with indirect reports and complete end of year appraisals.
• Deputise in the event of the Head of Technical Underwriting’s absence.
• Represent AICL at internal and external meetings as required.
• To contribute proportionally to the company’s achievement of all its targets.
• To action appraisal points from monthly reviews and achieve personal objectives and targets.
• Keep own knowledge up to date via continuous personal development.

The Ideal Candidate

Capability, Knowledge and Experience:

• Excellent proven technical knowledge of personal lines insurance underwriting and ability to apply skill across the various lines within the company’s portfolio.
• Team leadership experience.
• Competent understanding of personal lines claims operation procedures, processes and systems.
• Significant understanding of current industry standards for risk assessment.
• Previous experience of qualitative assessment in a large-scale operation, ideally within a claims or underwriting environment.
• Familiarity with audit preparation, process and presentation within a cost and risk control environment.
• Previous experience of EDI/Polaris systems working with or mapping to industrywide standards for both on and offline channels of business.
• Full understanding of FSA requirements and current FOS rulings within the personal lines insurance environment.
• Experience of liaising and reporting to senior management.
• Skilled presenter with excellent written & oral communication skills.
• Ability to work with flexibility on multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Analytical approach to tasks and projects with ability to identify and evaluate risk improvement.
• Excellent ability in both Word and Excel.
• Ability to identify training, product or process issues that are operationally relevant and take action to drive through change.
• An ability to negotiate and influence while maintaining confidentiality.

Education and Qualifications:

• Sound educational background.

Personal Characteristics:

• Self-motivated, decision maker confident in their own abilities.
• Good communication skills both written and verbal.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Excellent time management skills to enable successful delivery to deadlines and to the required standard.
• Flexible and adaptive to change
• Hands on attitude – not afraid to get involved,  work hard and motivate the Team.

Package Description

The standard benefits when you join Saga include:

• 28 days holiday
• Option to purchase a further 5 days annual leave per year
• Free private medical insurance after 1 years service
• Pension
• Saga Social Club
• AXA Be Supported
• Apples Nursery (Folkestone only and on a waiting list basis)
• Free fruit 
• Give as you earn
• Free eye tests
• Honeymoon benefit
• Sharebuy
• Salary finance
• Discounts on Saga holidays and insurance products
• A range of reductions and offers from leading retailers, travel groups and entertainment companies
• Long service awards

About the Company

When you join Saga you will see that we are committed to treating all employees fairly and to offering equal opportunities in all aspects of employment and advancement. 

We value diversity not just because it is the right thing to do, but because diverse teams perform better. Creating a culture in which everyone feels welcome and offering equal opportunities in all aspects of employment and advancement is incredibly important to us. Fair consideration is given to applications from all applicants, including those with disabilities. If you need support at any point with your application please let us know as we will be happy to help.

To all recruitment agencies: Saga does not accept agency CVs unless specifically engaged on the role by the HR Recruitment Team. Please do not forward CVs to our recruiters, employees or any other company location. Saga is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited CVs.

Saga Group