Head – Life Underwriting Job CIC Insurance
Insurance Jobs, CIC Insurance Jobs.
About the Role
Reporting to the Head of Life Operations, the Head – Life Underwriting will lead and manage the underwriting function for life assurance products, ensuring accurate risk assessment, adherence to underwriting guidelines, regulatory compliance, and achievement of profitability and service delivery objective.
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Key Responsibilities
Leadership & Strategy
- Define and lead the life underwriting function, setting the strategy aligned with the company’s risk appetite and business goals.
- Lead the development and implementation of life assurance underwriting policies, procedures, and best practices.
- Oversee departmental budgeting (Capex and Opex)
- Support the marketing and sales teams with technical input to acquire and retain profitable business
- Foster a high-performance culture and provide strong leadership to the underwriting team
- Identify and implement innovative underwriting tools (e.g., automated underwriting, predictive analytics)
- Champion the review and updating of underwriting manuals, SOPs, and business rules to align with changing business needs
Underwriting Oversight
- Monitor Group Life and Individual Life portfolio performance and recommend adjustments to risk appetite as needed
- Monitor industry trends, support product development and innovation initiatives in line with market trends and emerging customer needs
- Oversee technical risk evaluations, approve high-sum assured individual life and group life cases.
- Monitor underwriting decisions, audit case files, and drive continuous improvement
- Provide guidance on underwriting for scenarios outside the underwriting guidelines
- Review and approve Group Life Quotations of up to Kes 30,000,000 Annual premium
- Provide technical opinion on Group Life Quotations exceeding Kes 30,000,000 annual premium.
- Approve commission payments of up to Kes 2,000,000
- Approve payments of up to Kes 2,000,000 to service providers (health facilities)
- Ensure all risks are supported by the various Reinsurance/co-insurance arrangements in place.
Team Management
- Recruit, train, and mentor underwriters; foster a high-performance culture
- Ensure Underwriting Team annual KPI’s are set and Quarterly Performance appraisals are completed within set timelines
- Ensure development of and adherence to the annual leave plan for the Underwriting Team including approving leave requests for direct reportees.
- Approve purchase requisitions form
Stakeholder Engagement
- Work closely with internal and external stakeholders (reinsurers, claims, finance, customer experience, actuaries, product development, risk& compliance, Internal Audit and sales teams) to ensure cohesive processes.
- Client engagement- Participate in clients renewal negotiations, client product trainings and scheme’s performance reviews.
- Oversee responses to request by AKI and submission of any information requested by AKI from the Industry
- Respond to Life Underwriting enquiries from IRA and attend any meeting convened by the IRA as the Underwriting representative
Risk Management & Compliance
- Participate in internal and external audits, quality control reviews, and risk assessments
- Ensure sound risk selection and adherence to underwriting guidelines.
- Ensure compliance with insurance laws, regulatory guidelines, and internal controls
- Ensure compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) policy
Reporting and Analytics
- Prepare and review various management reports to be presented at the Mancomm, Excomm, Board and other stakeholder’s engagements.
- Monitor weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports, using insights to drive corrective actions when necessary.
- Monitor industry trends and regulatory changes affecting underwriting.
Who We’re Looking For
Essential Knowledge/Skills and Experience Required:
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Insurance, Actuarial Science, or a related field.
- Diploma in Insurance (Dip CII, Dip IIK, LOMA)
- Minimum of 10 years’ relevant experience, including at least 4 years in a supervisory role.
Key Competencies
- Deep technical expertise in life underwriting and risk assessment- understanding of medical, financial, and occupational underwriting
- Strong leadership and team development capabilities- Ability to lead multi-level teams and build departmental capacity
- Excellent analytical thinking – Ability to Interpret complex risk and data scenarios
- Decision making skills- Ability to make high-value underwriting decisions independently
- Excellent Communication Skills- Ability to communicate effectively with stakeholders at all levels
- Knowledge of underwriting systems and data analytics tools
- Strategic thinking with a business-oriented mindset-Ability to align underwriting practices with broader business goals
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