- We're looking for a Technical Underwriting Manager who understands that
- Reporting to the Head: Complex Commercial, this role is responsible for providing specialist technical underwriting expertise across HCC's mid-corporate portfolio. You'll play a critical role in assessing, pricing, structuring, and managing complex commercial risks while supporting underwriting excellence through referrals, broker engagement, governance, and capability development.
What you'll be trusted to own
- This is more than a technical underwriting role.
- It's about balancing growth, profitability, underwriting governance, broker relationships, and portfolio quality to ensure complex commercial risks are written within appetite, authority, and reinsurance frameworks.
How you'll make your mark:
- Assess new business, renewals, mid-term adjustments, and referrals for complex commercial risks, with a particular focus on property damage and business interruption exposures.
- Evaluate construction, occupancy, fire protection, catastrophe exposure, accumulation risks, and other material underwriting considerations.
- Review claims experience, loss trends, exposure changes, and risk improvement measures to support sound underwriting decisions.
- Determine appropriate terms, conditions, deductibles, warranties, exclusions, and subjectivities aligned to risk quality and underwriting appetite.
- Apply approved rating methodologies and technical pricing principles to maintain portfolio profitability and premium adequacy.
- Identify concentrations, adverse trends, pricing anomalies, and emerging risks across the portfolio.
- Interpret engineering surveys and risk improvement recommendations, ensuring material vulnerabilities are appropriately addressed.
- Oversee referrals, capacity management, facultative reinsurance requirements, and treaty eligibility considerations.
- Ensure policy wordings, endorsements, schedules, deductibles, and coverage structures accurately reflect underwriting intent and reinsurance requirements.
- Provide technical guidance and support to regional underwriting teams, brokers, and internal stakeholders.
- Build and maintain strong broker relationships while ensuring underwriting independence and consistency of decision-making.
- Coach and develop underwriting capability through training, technical guidance, case reviews, and knowledge-sharing initiatives.
- Contribute to product enhancements, wording development, underwriting frameworks, and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Monitor portfolio performance, premium adequacy, retention, loss experience, referral trends, and accumulation exposures.
- Deliver quality reporting, governance oversight, and audit-ready underwriting documentation.
Required Knowledge and Experience
What you'll bring
- A reputation for technical excellence, strong underwriting judgement, and the ability to influence sound commercial decisions across complex insurance portfolios. Minimum 5 years' technical underwriting experience within Commercial or Corporate Insurance environments.
- Extensive experience assessing and underwriting complex or large commercial risks.
- Strong knowledge of commercial property, business interruption, and asset all-risk insurance products.
- In-depth understanding of policy wordings, endorsements, exclusions, warranties, subjectivities, and schedule construction.
- Demonstrated experience applying underwriting pricing principles and managing portfolio profitability.
- Sound understanding of risk engineering findings, loss prevention practices, and risk improvement management
- Strong knowledge of reinsurance markets, treaty structures, facultative placements, and capacity management.
- Experience engaging with brokers, regional underwriting teams, and technical stakeholders.
- Strong analytical, financial, and risk assessment capability.
- Excellent communication, coaching, stakeholder management, and decision-making skills.
- Experience working with binder partners will be advantageous.
Educational Requirements
Qualifications
- Matric (Grade 12).
- Advanced Certificate in Short-Term Insurance (NQF 6 Associate).
- Ongoing compliance with CPD and Regulatory Examination (RE)
- Additional technical underwriting, risk management, or commercial insurance qualifications will be advantageous.
Deadline:2nd November,2026