Global Reinsurance - Chief Underwriting Officer (Basé à London)

About Everest

Everest is a leading global reinsurance and insurance provider, operating for nearly 50 years through subsidiaries in Europe, Bermuda, Canada, Singapore, the US, Latin America and other territories. Our strengths include extensive product and distribution capabilities, a strong balance sheet, and an innovative culture. Throughout our history, Everest has maintained its discipline and focuses on creating long-term value through underwriting excellence and strong risk and capital management. But the most critical asset in this organization is our people.

About the Role

Everest Reinsurance, a member of Everest Group, Ltd., is seeking a Chief Underwriting Officer for its Global Reinsurance Operations. As a key member of the Global leadership team reporting to the Executive Vice President & Global Chief Operating Officer of Everest Reinsurance, you will play a vital role on our journey as a world-class underwriting organization.

The Global Reinsurance CUO is responsible for driving underwriting excellence across the company, including general underwriting policy and underwriting management best practices. This includes advancing underwriting profitability, governance, product and pricing strategies, adoption of new tools, data and analytics and empowering our underwriters to make informed underwriting decisions within that framework. As a leader within the organization, this individual will help shape the overall direction of the business, identify growth opportunities, innovate our product set, anticipate, and react to market trends, and drive profitability across the portfolio.

The successful candidate must operate across a wide range of reinsurance products and exposures including treaty and facultative. As such, the role requires strong core knowledge of global reinsurance markets. Our diversified portfolio of customers and products requires the ability to pivot from portfolio underwriting to individual account underwriting and back.

Leadership and management responsibilities include Corporate Underwriting and Contract Wording teams. There are several core areas of focus for this position, which will also be supplemented by other strategic initiatives and priorities as needed. The fundamental areas of engagement are:

• Portfolio Optimization & Technical Underwriting: Provide deep technical expertise and guidance for all business unit product capabilities. Serve as a trusted advisor. Oversee the management and refinement of all Underwriting Guidelines in collaboration with Divisional Leaders. Drive thoughtful cycle management across the portfolio leveraging analytics and functional support resources to capitalize on high margin opportunities, reposition or exit unprofitable lines and grow/maintain margins for the balance of the book. Proactively monitor key underwriting and claims metrics to identify emerging risks and opportunities. Collaborate with underwriting leaders, business performance management, actuarial and CAT modeling teams to develop and implement technical pricing and other analytic capabilities to drive price adequacy and profitability. Implement, assess and refine pricing strategies; including risk tiering, segmentation and other methods to optimize portfolio. Act as underwriting referral point for complex risks that exceed authority levels of the underwriting units. Proactively drive underwriting actions and initiatives to improve overall profitability of the portfolio. Implement adoption of advanced tools and supplemental data sets to enhance and augment underwriting.
• New Product Development: Oversee coordination and evaluation of new product, program and geographic expansion opportunities. Ensure that proper Underwriting strategies align with appetite, target portfolio metrics.
• Underwriting Audit Process: Manage overall underwriting audit framework. Lead and manage the quality/content of Underwriting audit findings and the audit process. Use the audit process to build & strengthen underwriter skill sets, improve strategies and update guidelines over time. Manage audit recommendations generated by audit findings to conclusion and create a team process to do so. Implement and monitor supplementary underwriter self-audit quality control processes.
• Risk Management: Manage portfolio Gross/Net premium and CAT accumulations. Monitor and manage portfolio within established tolerances, thresholds, and target metrics. Reinsurance Division representative on Group Product Boards, Underwriter Committees, Statutory Boards, and Corporate Enterprise Risk Management process requirements as necessary.
• Authority Management & Governance: Responsible for delegation of underwriting authority and attestations of underwriting team; maintain and improve an appropriate referral and delegation process based upon experience and skill sets. Establish a process that confers underwriting authority after completion and review of onboarding process and provide updates as needed. Monitor authority levels each year and work to modify as needed over time.
• Training & Talent Development: Collaborate with Talent development on training and development opportunities to enhance modern underwriter skillsets. Advance underwriting skillsets to adapt to rapidly changing risk landscape. Oversee the ongoing development of the underwriters targeting a customer-focused and solutions-oriented expert that relies on data-driven decision-making and technology to optimize their underwriting portfolio and deliver consistent underwriting profit. Manage training needs based upon audit feedback, referral reviews and new product needs.

Qualifications and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree
• Insurance certifications (CPCU, ARM, FCAS, etc.) a plus.
• 20+ years of reinsurance underwriting and related experience
• Broad knowledge of P&C insurance and reinsurance underwriting
• Ability to operate in a dynamic and high-paced environment with a sense of urgency.
• Adaptable and able to manage competing priorities.
• Strong problem-solving analytical skills.
• Growth mindset, desire to both learn and teach.
• Ability to drive data analytics and make appropriate correlations on results.
• Ability to manage multiple projects and timelines across a variety of stakeholders to meet target deliverable deadlines.
• Strong communications skills both written and oral. Ability to concisely provide executive summaries to senior management as needed.
• Experience in corporate governance and controls management including exposure to a wide variety of systems.
• Wide variety of assignments in operational workflow reviews and systems a plus.
• Experience in corporate governance controls and supporting infrastructure.
• Well organized with relentless attention to detail.
• Self-motivated.
• Ability to work both independently and collaboratively in a team environment.
• Action oriented and strong work ethic.

Our Culture

At Everest, our purpose is to provide the world with protection. We help clients and businesses thrive, fuel global economies, and create sustainable value for our colleagues, shareholders and the communities that we serve. We also pride ourselves on having a unique and inclusive culture which is driven by a unified set of values and behaviours.

Our Values are the guiding principles that inform our decisions, actions and behaviours. They are an expression of our culture and an integral part of how we work: Talent. Thoughtful assumption of risk. Execution. Efficiency. Humility. Leadership. Collaboration. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Our Colleague Behaviours define how we operate and interact with each other no matter our location, level or function: Respect everyone. Pursue better. Lead by example. Own our outcomes. Win together.

All colleagues are held accountable to upholding and supporting our values and behaviours across the company. This includes day-to-day interactions with fellow colleagues, and the global communities we serve.

What if I don’t meet every requirement? At Everest we are dedicated to building an inclusive and authentic workplace. So, if you are excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every element in the job description, we still encourage you to apply. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles. Please let us know if you need any accommodations throughout the application or interview process.