Head of Annuity Underwriting

Location and flexible working: London, Telford or Edinburgh. We recognise the benefits of flexible working and will discuss what is important to you and balancing this with business requirements during the recruitment process.

Flexible working: All our roles are open to part-time, job-share and other types of flexibility. We will discuss what is important to you and balancing this with business requirements during the recruitment process. You can read more about Phoenix Flex here .

Salary and benefits: £59,600 - £95,700 plus bonus 30% - 60%, private medical cover, 38 days annual leave, excellent pension, 12x salary life assurance, career breaks, income protection, 3x volunteering days and much more!

We’re currently recruiting for Head of Annuity Underwriting to join our Individual Retirement Solutions management team in Retirement Solutions. The successful candidate will be required to head up a small team to drive customer outcomes for Annuity customers by using their experience and passion to drive the development of our philosophy and provide excellent customer service.

Working within a professional and industry experienced management team across our London, Telford and Edinburgh locations, you will lead the underwriting of customer outcomes for Annuity customers. This is a fantastic opportunity to bring your own experience, ways of working and knowledge – we want to hear from you if you love to provide excellent customer outcomes from both how we underwrite, how we implement great systems and ultimately provide the best service to customers.

What are we looking for?

• Proven Annuity underwriting experience to a senior level.
• Previous senior underwriting management experience in managing service, systems and resources.
• Experience of creating and managing underwriting philosophy and rules based underwriting systems.
• Able to demonstrate excellent communication skills (verbally and written) and have experience working with reinsurers and third-party suppliers.
• Constant drive to improve underwriting systems and processes and be more efficient through automation.
• Natural flair for collaboration across levels and teams to influence change.

Key responsibilities:

• Lead the team to ensure there are sufficient resources to provide excellent customer service with underwriters developed to make decisions in line with agreed philosophy.
• Lead on the development of the medical underwriting philosophy and underwriting rules engine, working with internal and external experts to create a sustainable model for the future.
• Lead our underwriting relationship with reinsurers to ensure that our underwriting practices meet their criteria. Continually review our reinsurance terms to take account of our practices and the advances in medical science and research.
• Ensure that the Underwriting Team continue to offer good outcomes for customers while writing profitable business.
• Lead the team to achieve corporate/divisional/area goals.
• Lead the refinement of our post sales underwriting process. Ensure that we learn from our experience and feed the results into the relevant management committees and reinsurers to ensure we are maximising the selection criteria.
• Take the lead underwriting role in our interaction with external underwriting committees and groups with a particular interest in annuity underwriting.
• Lead underwriting team to deliver the required input into projects, ensuring the project meets its objectives on time and within budget.
• Continually look to enhance processes and procedures to deliver effective solutions for the business.
• Create a culture and effective structure for robust risk management in underwriting, including controls to comply with applicable regulatory requirements and ensure that customer outcomes are in line with the Conduct Risk Framework.

We want to hire the whole version of you.

We are committed to ensuring that everyone feels accepted and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. If your experience looks different from what we’ve advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we’d love to hear from you.

If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best.

Find out more about #LifeAtPhoenix