Head of Uk Underwriting and Risk

**Head of UK Underwriting and Risk**

**Location**: Hybrid - with visits to our office in Wimbledon as and when required

**Salary**: Competitive

**Contract Type**: Permanent

We have an exciting opportunity for a Head of UK Underwriting and Risk to join our Underwriting team here at Domestic & General. Reporting into the Director of Group Underwriting, you will be responsible for maximising profitability, exceeding internal budgets for our warranty business across several major accounts and countries.

The role will also consist of forecasting and managing the profitability of new and existing lines of warranty business across corporate and consumer products. Your involvement will have a direct impact on the profitable growth of our organisation as you work across a diverse array of business sectors. Operating within a fast growing and dynamic business, the role contributes directly to the profitable growth of the organisation.

It will be supported by a team of two to three Managers and their direct reports (of which there are 4 to 6)

The team are responsible for:

- Developing and delivering creative solutions to complex warranty design problems, including those related to our pricing engine and policy admin system
- Shaping and enhancing our underwriting strategy and working with Data, Analytics, Pricing, Commercial Finance, Product and Tech teams to deliver these changes.
- Analysing new data sources or avenues for understanding how they might benefit our strategy
- Using algorithmic and hypothesis-driven research to enhance our performance
- Managing a portfolio of warranty products
- The development and maintenance of claims forecasting models and monitoring frameworks that help identify key trends in the performance of our portfolio and influence customer level risk based pricing
- Setting viable pricing and commission structures for new and existing warranty business in collaboration with Pricing and Commercial Finance
- Ensuring the pricing, commercial arrangements and product design of warranty business delivers against cost and target margins over a lifecycle, through accurate costing and modelling
- Producing 1 Year and 5 Year fees, Income and Claims forecasts, as part of budget cycle
- Working with Finance, Service and wider business stakeholders to understand and explain drivers of variances.
- Being fully embedded within the business supporting key decisions and actively collaborating across functions to identify opportunities for value creation
- Helping build our fraud capabilities as 1st Line of defence
- Domestic & General is a company with an ambitious future. _We are expanding our horizons and entering new markets and we need your expertise to help make it happen. _We are an international company who works with some of the worlds most respected and well-known brands of domestic appliances and electronic consumer goods. _These opportunities don’t come around often, so this really is a position not to be missed._

**Key role responsibilities:
- Line management of two to three Underwriting Managers and wider responsibility for four to six analysts. Mentoring and managing the team and environment for individuals to unleash their potential.
- Work with large data sets, analyse key trends and drivers, using new methods of modelling using R or Python, instead of current Excel methods to support customer level risk based pricing
- Gain the trust of the business and become a critical friend providing challenge on performance and future strategy.
- Represent Underwriting on the relevant leadership teams or committees across the business ensuring all stakeholders have the right level of understanding of underwriting performance and are sufficiently supported in their decision-making.
- Delivery of high quality and well understood forecasts and budgets and subsequent updates with well understood risks and opportunities, encouraging a no surprises culture.
- Work closely with key stakeholders in the data team to understand, identify and execute opportunities for value creation

**Skills and experience required**:

- Previous experience of underwriting or credit strategy in an insurance or financial services business partnering in a complex, fast paced environment.
- Proven leader of high performing teams
- A critical thinker with strong analytical and problem solving skills.
- Ability to lead a team through period of change
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; interpersonal and collaborative skills
- Capable of building effective relationships with stakeholders across all levels and fully understands the challenges of the function being supported
- Ability to maintain professional relationships with senior management of all disciplines
- Strategic thinking capability
- Able to operate effectively in a complex business environment
- Work collaboratively across functions, recognising and utilising the expertise across the business to drive value
- Confident in holding self and oth