Small Business Senior/Lead Underwriter (Western Zone)

Job Summary

The Small Business Senior/Lead Underwriter owns their territory and partners with the Territory Manager to execute strategic priorities, drive profitable growth, and support retention. They apply our Underwriting Philosophy by balancing individual risk characteristics, agency performance, and portfolio health to make informed underwriting decisions. As trusted advisors to their agency partners, they provide guidance and solutions that strengthen relationships, support mutual success, and deliver consistent value to customers and the business.

The role leverages strong underwriting expertise, critical thinking, problem-solving acumen, portfolio management skills, data and analytics, and creativity to make informed risk decisions, optimize territory performance, and improve business outcomes. The Senior/Lead Underwriter is expected to demonstrate strong workload management, agency partnership, and support continuous improvement while serving as a resource and mentor to peers within the underwriting organization. The role makes responsible decisions regarding risk acceptability and pricing, escalates issues as needed, and provides leadership with insights on market trends, agency opportunities, and operational improvements. The Senior/Lead Underwriter embraces change, demonstrates adaptability, and serves as a champion for new processes, technologies, and ways of working to support the evolving needs of the organization and our agency partners.

Job Responsibilities

• Manages an assigned portfolio of business consistent with underwriting strategies, profitability objectives, growth targets, retention goals, and customer experience expectations.
• Effectively prioritizes and manages a high-volume workload across multiple agencies, balancing production, the agency experience, underwriting integrity, responsiveness, and business objectives.
• Collects, analyzes, and evaluates underwriting information to make sound risk selection, pricing, and coverage decisions consistent with company appetite and strategy.
• Operates as a Trusted Advisor by developing strong relationships with agencies, producers, and other distribution partners to understand business objectives, identify opportunities, and drive profitable outcomes.
• Leverages portfolio underwriting principles, analytics, business intelligence, and market insights to identify trends, opportunities, and actions that optimize territory performance.
• Owns their territory by collaborating with Sales, Product, Operations and key business partners to align strategies, address challenges, and achieve profitable growth, retention, and territory objectives.
• Leverages underwriting expertise, business acumen, and creative problem-solving to deliver solutions that balance agency needs with company objectives. Partners and negotiates with agents to achieve profitable outcomes, strengthens agency relationships, and contributes to agency business planning and growth strategies.
• Provides leadership with feedback and recommendations on market conditions, competitor activity, agency performance, product opportunities, pricing trends, and emerging business needs.
• Identifies and implements opportunities to improve operational efficiency, streamline underwriting processes, and enhance agency and customer experiences.
• Actively embraces and leverages technology, digital capabilities, automation tools, and innovation initiatives to improve underwriting effectiveness and business results.
• Builds and maintains effective communication internally and externally regarding underwriting practices, agency strategies, growth objectives, and service expectations.
• Collaborates with corporate and shared service partners to execute business strategies and deliver a seamless customer and agency experience.
• Champions organizational change by adopting new processes, technologies, and ways of working while helping agency partners and teammates successfully navigate change in a growing and evolving organization.
• Serves as a resource for peers by sharing knowledge, promoting best practices, supporting onboarding efforts, and contributing to the development of underwriting excellence across the team.

Job Qualifications

• 5+ years of Commercial Underwriting experience.
• Bachelor's degree in a related field and/or commensurate work experience.

Licenses and Certifications

• Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) (Preferred)
• Property And Casualty Insurance License (PCIL) (Preferred)

Location

Hybrid- defined as working three or more days per week in the office if the employee's residence is within 50 miles of Westfield Center, OH; OR Remote-if the employee resides more than 50 miles from Westfield Center, OH.

Behavioral Competencies

• Collaborates
• Communicates Effectively
• Customer Focus
• Nimble Learning
• Ability to Influence
• Builds Effective Relationships
• Adaptability

Technical Skills

• Commercial Lines Underwriting
• Underwriting Strategy
• Risk Management
• Portfolio & Territory Management
• Data Analysis & Business Insights
• Critical Thinking & Problem Solving

This job description describes the general nature and level of work performed in this role. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, skills, responsibilities, knowledge, etc. These may be subject to change and additional functions may be assigned as needed by management.