Regional Underwriter - Agriculture

About us

Starr is a global insurance and investment organisation providing property and casualty insurance solutions to business and industry. Starr has grown into one of the world’s fastest‑expanding insurance organisations, writing business in 128 countries across six continents. Our talented and experienced associates manage risk and ultimately support the profitable growth of organisations in a dynamic, competitive and ever-changing marketplace. Join us and become part of our talented and passionate workforce.

ERS Syndicate 218 at Lloyds is managed by Starr. We are the UK’s largest specialist motor insurer with an A+ rating and have been making motoring passions and livelihoods possible since 1946. We work exclusively with motor insurance brokers to help get under the skin of the most difficult insurance risks, helping build products to meet their customer’s needs.

Role Purpose

ERS is a leading underwriter of a wide range of specialist motor insurance products. Within ERS’s strategy of being the UKs leading specialist motor insurer, our focus is on delivering sustainable, high margin growth in these segments through the provision of high quality propositions to a wide range of broker partners.

The Regional Underwriter’s primary responsibilities are for the execution of our underwriting strategy and underwriting appetite, and materially contributing to the achievement of our short and medium term financial plans.  The Underwriter role is responsible for a range of complex underwriting activities and in contributing to our continual drive towards improving our financial performance.

The role is market visible, involving broker contact when communicating our strategy, underwriting unusual and complex risks and in helping manage the financial performance of existing relationships and in seeking to broaden our market penetration. 

Success in the role requires technical expertise in Farm Motor Insurance and frequent collaboration with other business functions to ensure that we leverage capabilities from across the business in delivering first class propositions to our chosen market. 

Key Responsibilities

• Providing input to the development of our underwriting appetite for our product(s) based on your market knowledge and product expertise and being responsible for executing our pricing and underwriting strategies  
• Contributing to the management of portfolio performance through the analysis of results, execution of our selection and pricing strategies and providing recommendations as to actions which will drive continuous performance improvement, thus ensuring that we will meet or exceed our financial plans
• Underwriting a range of risks in accordance within our stated underwriting appetite. You will also provide input and feedback such that we constantly refine our underwriting appetite to ensure that we take advantage of market opportunities and outperform our peers through superior risk selection and proactive management of our business mix
• Work with the Regional Trading Underwriter on a panel of brokers to develop relationships and extract the best quality business in line with our risk appetite.
• Use existing market knowledge to establish and continually enhancing a range of business relationships with our key partners, ensuring that we understand and satisfy their needs and those of their customers Acting as a point of technical referral from brokers and internal functions, using your extensive risk, product and pricing knowledge to inform appropriate decisions in respect of those referrals
• Provide feedback to Product Managers and to members of our Pricing team relating to the effectiveness of our risk pricing models to help us constantly drive enhanced sophistication and accuracy in our risk pricing   

The above duties and responsibilities are not an exhaustive list, and you may be required to undertake other reasonable duties compatible with your experience and competencies. This description may be varied from time to time to reflect changing business requirements.

Conduct Rules

All employees are subject to the following regulatory conduct rules:

• You must act with integrity.
• You must act with due care, skill and diligence.
• You must be open and cooperative with the FCA, the PRA and other regulators.
• You must pay due regard to the interests of customers and treat them fairly.
• You must observe proper standards of market conduct
• You must act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers

Qualifications, skills and experience

This role carries financial responsibility as well as being recognized as a subject matter expert in your product(s).

We therefore require our role holders to demonstrate technical expertise and to use commercial judgment in the fulfilment of their role. We expect our people to demonstrate the following skills, attributes and knowledge:

• An understanding of underwriting strategy and risk appetites and  ability to operate within these to ensure the achievement of a set of challenging financial targets
• Possessing extensive technical knowledge of the product(s), including the features of the product, factors that drive product performance, market dynamics which influence how the product is delivered and the requirements of customers using the product(s)

• Underwriting, risk selection and pricing skills which will ensure that we optimize the financial performance of a range of product propositions in a complex and competitive market.
• Possess extensive commercial awareness, being able to spot and take advantage of opportunities and to fulfil their role in a way which enhances our financial performance
• Possess an understanding of pricing practices and methodologies with the ability and experience to help us constantly enhance our pricing capability, providing insight and feedback on our pricing models
• Possessing interpersonal skills which will allow you to build and maintain value adding relationships. You must be able to articulate what a mutually beneficial relationship looks like and be comfortable having difficult conversations with business partners and colleagues
• Having a strong awareness and understanding of our control environment which allows us to operate within our stated underwriting authorities, risk appetites and operational processes
• Having knowledge of the legal, regulatory and compliance provisions that apply to the UK motor insurance market 

Core behavioural expectations

• Analysis and decision making
• Strategic perspective
• Commerciality
• Relationships
• Communication and influence
• Development of self and others

Additional Information

• A full job description can be seen here