Director, Technical Underwriting - Property

Farmers Insurance

1d•$156,300 - $297,125

About The Position

As Director, Technical Underwriting - Property, the role serves as Farmers’ senior technical authority for commercial property underwriting. The Director establishes underwriting frameworks, drives portfolio performance, oversees authority management and quality initiatives, and provides expert guidance on complex property risks. This is a newly formed technical underwriting function within a significant modernization of Farmers’ Business Insurance organization. The role combines deep underwriting expertise, strategic leadership, and organizational influence. The Director helps shape underwriting appetite, governance frameworks, authority structures, quality programs, and portfolio performance while building technical capabilities across the broader underwriting organization. The position focuses on building technical excellence, enhancing underwriting quality, improving profitability, and developing underwriting talent. The role may be performed in person at a Farmers office or virtually at an approved alternative work location. Farmers describes its workplace as onsite, hybrid, or remote; employees living within 50 miles of a corporate office follow a hybrid environment with at least three days in the office and up to two virtual days. The physical work environment is indoors and climate-controlled, with normal office noise and interruptions. Travel is rare, if any.

Requirements

Large commercial property underwriting expertise.
At least 10 years of insurance underwriting or insurance compliance experience.
At least 5 years of experience leading people.
Bachelor’s degree required.
Ability to drive multiple projects to successful completion.
Ability to lead cross-functional work, drive decisions, and build alignment across underwriting, product, pricing/actuarial, IT, data/analytics, and operations.
Effective leadership skills.
Demonstrated change leadership, including adoption planning, training enablement, measurement, and continuous improvement.
Ability to instill commitment to organizational goals.
Ability to understand the business vision and direction and develop and execute a plan to achieve business results.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree preferably in mathematics, business, or finance.
CPCU or CIC designation preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead authority management strategy and the underwriting governance framework, including corporate authority templates, referral triggers, and decision rules.
Define and enforce underwriting decision practices to ensure consistency with underwriting strategy and risk appetite.
Exercise elevated underwriting authority and provide guidance on complex or high-exposure risks.
Own underwriting performance and profitability for assigned lines of business, including loss ratio, combined ratio, growth, and retention.
Monitor performance and take action to achieve financial and business objectives.
Own the underwriting quality program and control environment, including quality standards, leakage monitoring, audits, and compliance frameworks.
Identify control gaps and implement corrective actions to ensure adherence to underwriting guidelines, regulatory requirements, and internal policies.
Translate underwriting strategy and risk appetite into technical frameworks, including guidelines, authority structures, and operational rules.
Ensure consistent execution across lines of business through clear standards and governance mechanisms.
Partner with actuarial and data and analytics teams to develop and deploy portfolio analytics, underwriting models, and decision-support tools.
Establish and lead emerging risk identification and governance processes.
Collaborate cross-functionally to assess impacts and drive updates to underwriting guidelines, authority frameworks, and control structures.
Provide direct technical guidance and support to underwriting centers, ensuring responsiveness, effective decision-making, and alignment with underwriting standards.
Lead, develop, and retain talent in either quality or loss control functions.
Build deep technical expertise and governance discipline within the organization.
Implement feedback loops to continuously improve underwriting decision quality, pricing discipline, and overall performance.
Coordinate and manage the portfolio of individual account reinsurance placements and collaborate with the reinsurance team on annual facility placements.
Perform other duties as assigned.