Underwriting Assistant

The Underwriting Assistant role will support numerous lines of business within Financial Risk Solutions Global Pillars - including Credit Solutions, Short Term Trade Solutions and Political Risk. This is an administrative role within Operations at LSM and is the primary business-support contact for the underwriting teams. The main objective is to ensure risks and any amendments made by underwriters are processed into the system accurately and on time. Effective communication across LSM and the ability to prioritise work against system close dates, SLAs and KPIs are essential. The role includes accurate and efficient data management, processing of accounts, maintaining quality service levels, and ensuring end-to-end compliance with relevant guidelines.

Underwriting Support is part of Business Support within the Operations department. The team provides offshore colleagues with the information required to process premiums on our policy administration systems within agreed SLAs. The team also supports underwriters with general administration of policy files, reporting, operational process guidance, and other ad hoc requirements. We work closely with the cash and credit control functions to ensure payment-related issues and queries are investigated and resolved. The Operations department also includes MI & Analytics, Claims Operations, Facilities, Strategic Operations and IT. Data timeliness, quality and accuracy are central to our responsibilities. Together we deliver effective support services across the business, enabling LSM to meet revenue, growth and other strategic objectives.

Key Responsibilities:

• Create and update documentation required to process policies and policy changes on processing systems for both syndicate and company risks (e.g., front sheets and raters).
• Liaise with underwriting teams to ensure all required information is provided for processing.
• Work with Underwriting to keep Estimated Premium Income (EPI) entries current in source systems.
• For company risks, complete a four-eye check on financial information entered by offshore processing partners and either sign off or request corrections.
• Respond to queries from offshore processing partners and/or the QC team within SLA.
• File documentation according to the team’s prescribed filing structure.
• Monitor personal performance against the team’s SLAs and KPIs.
• Address data quality issues in your work and take corrective action promptly.
• Assist in resolving transactional data management issues within SLAs.
• Carry out weekly work to resolve unallocated cash and outstanding debt queries and investigations.
• Support month-end close procedures as directed.
• Maintain system knowledge by personally processing 5-10 items per month.
• Investigate items on team monitoring reports and respond to underwriting support management in a timely manner.
• Train offshore processing team members, new starters and other support teams as required.

Communication:

• Inform underwriting support management and underwriting teams of potential backlogs or workload build-ups as required.
• Provide weekly updates to underwriting support management and underwriting teams on progress against SLAs and KPIs.
• Respond to all queries within three business days; if no resolution is available, advise the query originator of the delay.
• Actively participate in team meetings and one-to-one catch-ups with team managers.

Ancillary Tasks & Teamwork:

• Assist with audit activities as required.
• Work with underwriting support management to keep internal training materials and materials for offshore partners accurate and up to date.
• Promote continuous improvement and raise process improvement suggestions with underwriting support management.
• Support the team with ad hoc tasks, projects and other duties as reasonably requested.
• Contribute to system and process change activities as directed by Underwriting Support Management.
• Coach and, where required, provide day-to-day supervision for more junior colleagues.

Stakeholder Management:

• Regularly meet and have open dialogue with underwriting teams.
• Support other stakeholders and colleagues as required (e.g., Claims Adjusters, Risk Engineers, Exposure Management).
• Liaise with brokers to manage accounts as necessary.
• Escalate important or critical business issues to Underwriting Support Management.
• Build strong working relationships with colleagues and departmental management/functional leadership.

Professionalism:

• Adhere to all relevant regulatory requirements and demonstrate behaviours set out in the Conduct Risk Policy. This supports LSM’s commitment to Liberty values, placing customers at the centre of our business and acting with integrity.
• Understand and proactively comply with responsibilities under regulatory and internal requirements, including the Senior Managers and Certification Regime Conduct Rules, Solvency II, fair treatment of customers, Financial Crime, Data Protection, Conflicts of Interest and Whistleblowing.

Skills and Experience:

• Relevant insurance experience, preferably within the London/Lloyd’s market.
• Experience with transactional insurance systems (Genius/IRIS) highly desirable.
• Advanced verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong MS Office skills, particularly Excel.
• Experience working to varying and tight deadlines.
• Ability to work independently.
• Advanced prioritisation skills.
• Strong analytical skills.