Head of Risk Pricing

Locations: Haywards Heath or Manchester (Hybrid)

Role Overview

Markerstudy Group are looking for a Head of Risk Pricing to lead our technical risk pricing team and implement the company's pricing strategy for broker and direct channels. Markerstudy is a leading provider of private insurance in the UK, insuring around 5% of the private cars on the UK roads, 20% of commercial vehicles and over 30% of motorcycles in total premium levels of circa £1.2b. The majority of business is written as the insurance pricing provider behind household names such as Co-op, Sainsbury's, O2, Halifax, AA, Saga and Lloyds Bank to list a few and Markerstudy also has a large and growing direct presence in the market as well.

Markerstudy are building a market-leading pricing environment, integrating AI, machine learning and distributed computing into the heart of the underwriting, pricing and product management processes, and implementing innovative techniques and solutions. You will leverage your extensive pricing experience to guide the implementation of a market leading modelling roadmap and pricing strategy that will give Markerstudy a critical advantage in the increasingly competitive insurance market.

As the Head of Risk Pricing, you will:

• Lead the technical risk pricing team to deliver technical rates incorporating regularly maintained risk models and delivering the company's strategy and risk appetite.
• Engage with the retail pricing, underwriting and data science teams and work collaboratively to deliver rates.
• Own the roadmap of technical advancement and processes that monitor the robustness and stability of pricing outcomes.
• Engage with stakeholders across the business and ensure that the strategic objectives feed into the team.
• Build and mentor the team, leading by example.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the risk pricing team to develop and maintain risk models, leveraging both traditional and machine learning techniques.
• Monitor the quality of risk modelling, including accuracy, drift and stability of trends.
• Manage inflationary, IBNR and other risk trends within the technical rates in collaboration with the reserving and claims teams.
• Engage with underwriting to incorporate insights into the models and validate models.
• Ensure the production of complete and accurate model review report to support the approval of models.
• Own the production of regular reporting of technical portfolio and model performance.
• Actively seek new data sources and continually improve the features within the models.
• Support the wider business risk exposure data requirements, including reinsurance.
• Build and mentor the team of 15-20 pricing analysts/managers, leading by example.
• Engage with the underwriting, retail pricing and data science teams and work collaboratively to deliver pricing outcomes as one team.
• Own the technical roadmap and deliver the development plan.
• Own the risk pricing policy, processes and controls, and ensure accurate and compliant rates.
• Leverage the machine learning and distributed computing platforms to guide the team in delivering efficient and robust outcomes.
• Stay abreast of market conditions, emerging issues and the regulatory environment.
• Communicate results to key decision makers across the business.
• Engage with executive management around the activities and outputs of the team and help define the overall pricing strategy.
• Link-in with the data and machine learning team and help drive forward the industrialisation of data, reporting and modelling.
• Engage with pricing teams within affinity, partnerships and broking divisions, and help define best practice across the group.

Key Skills and Experience:

• Ph.D. or masters in statistics, actuarial science, data science or equivalent field.
• Previous experience within personal lines insurance pricing.
• Experience managing pricing processes and teams.
• Experience and detailed technical knowledge of predictive modelling and data science techniques.
• Experience with pricing tools and rating engines (e.g. Radar/Emblem, Earnix).
• Proficient at communicating results in a concise manner both verbally and written.

Behaviours:

• Motivated by technical excellence.
• Team player.
• Self-motivated with a drive to learn and develop.
• Logical thinker with a professional and positive attitude.
• Passion to innovate and improve processes.