Acasta Underwriting Manager Role

Acasta is a specialist insurer writing a varied book of niche and specialty lines, mostly through coverholders, MGAs and delegated authority schemes. We're investing in our own underwriting, pricing and technical capability, and we're looking for an Underwriting Manager to lead the underwriting team and take day-to-day ownership of the book.

This isn't a narrow desk role. You'll lead the underwriting team and own the day-to-day technical underwriting of the delegated and direct book, making sure risks are selected, priced and managed within appetite and in line with regulatory and delegated authority requirements.

From that foundation, you'll own the onboarding of new schemes, hold and develop the client relationships, monitor how the book, clients and products are performing, and act on what you see. You'll also work directly with the Senior Leadership Team on wider initiatives across operations, pricing and strategy.

What you'll be doing

• Directly managing, training and coaching a team of three underwriters, building capability and resilience and shaping how the team works
• Leading the technical underwriting of schemes and risks and using your judgement on the harder cases
• Reviewing referrals from underwriters and coverholders and setting the referral standard
• Referring binding decisions, and anything outside appetite or guidelines, to the Head of Underwriting or the Underwriting and Claims Committee with a clear recommendation
• Owning the onboarding of new schemes and coverholders end to end, coordinating pricing, product, underwriting and compliance to bring new business live cleanly and on time
• Working with compliance on the checks needed to bring a scheme live (delegated authority monitoring itself sits with compliance)
• Setting schemes up to succeed, with clear terms, aligned pricing and product, and a smooth handover into business as usual
• Acting as the link between underwriting, pricing and products, keeping them aligned on appetite, pricing, wordings and change
• Providing underwriting input into product design, wordings and pricing reviews
• Supporting reinsurance renewal submissions with underwriting data, judgement and commentary
• Building and maintaining strong relationships with clients, coverholders and schemes
• Being a trusted, responsive point of contact who understands each client's business and objectives
• Balancing the client relationship with disciplined underwriting and the interests of the book
• Monitoring performance across the book, individual schemes, clients and products
• Spotting emerging issues early, such as deteriorating loss ratios, data quality, coverholder conduct or product performance
• Recommending corrective action, whether that's retriage, repricing, re-underwriting, remediation or escalation
• Challenging incomplete or inconsistent underwriting or scheme data and requiring it to be corrected
• Supporting the Head of Underwriting on wider initiatives across operations, pricing and strategy
• Preparing and presenting underwriting papers and MI to the Underwriting and Claims Committee
• Making sure underwriting practices meet GFSC and applicable UK regulatory requirements
• Making sure your own and your team's training is completed and actions are delivered on time