Senior Lead, Underwriting

MGT Insurance•Madison, WI

13h•$160,000 - $220,000

About The Position

MGT Insurance is seeking a Senior Lead, Underwriting to serve as the primary underwriting authority within their insurance organization. This role involves defining MGT's underwriting strategy, including what business to write, what to avoid, and ensuring consistent application of judgment across the team and book of business. The ideal candidate is a seasoned small commercial P&C underwriter with strong technical judgment and leadership capabilities to build and improve a high-performing underwriting function that can operate at the speed and scale required by a broker-facing, quote-and-bind platform. This position reports directly to the Head of Insurance Product & UW and is central to MGT's product, pricing, and underwriting functions.

Requirements

10+ years of commercial P&C underwriting experience with technical depth across at least three of: BOP, Commercial Auto, Farm, General Liability, or Commercial Property.
Demonstrated experience authoring or substantially revising underwriting guidelines at a carrier or program level.
Deep knowledge of ISO forms, coverage structure, and the interplay between policy language and loss outcomes.
Admitted market experience: state-filed rates, SERFF, ISO deviation, and regulatory compliance expectations.
Strong analytical instincts — comfortable reading loss runs, evaluating portfolio mix, and spotting adverse selection patterns.
Clear, precise communicator — able to make complex coverage questions legible to engineers, product managers, and agents alike.

Nice To Haves

E&S / surplus lines experience — manuscript forms, non-standard appetite, wholesale distribution dynamics.
Farm or agribusiness underwriting background.
Experience contributing to reinsurance treaty submissions or loss picks.
Comfort working in tech-forward environments with AI-assisted tools, API-driven quoting systems, and modern policy admin platforms.
CPCU, AU, or equivalent professional designation.

Responsibilities

Author, maintain, and evolve underwriting guidelines across all MGT lines: BOP, Commercial Auto, Farm, Property, and General Liability.
Define and document MGT's risk appetite — what we target, what we avoid, and where we compete on selection vs. price.
Establish and maintain underwriting authority matrices; ensure consistent application across admitted and E&S markets.
Own the referral and exception framework — what escalates, who decides, and how decisions are documented.
Drive regular guideline reviews informed by loss experience, market shifts, and reinsurance treaty requirements.
Serve as MGT's authoritative voice on coverage questions — policy language, exclusions, endorsements, and manuscript form decisions.
Partner with forms and compliance on SERFF filings, ISO deviation analysis, and non-standard coverage structures.
Review and opine on complex or non-standard submissions that fall outside standard guidelines.
Provide technical UW input to the Athena AI underwriting agent — coverage interpretation, edge case reasoning, and appetite encoding.
Own the underwriting quality program: file audits, bind reviews, renewal screenings, and adverse selection monitoring.
Partner with actuarial and data teams on rate adequacy reviews, loss ratio analysis, and segment-level profitability assessment.
Identify guideline gaps or adverse trends and drive corrective action — through guideline amendments, appetite tightening, or pricing signals.
Contribute to reinsurance submissions and treaty discussions with technical UW perspective.
Collaborate with product managers on new program design, coverage enhancements, and schedule rating logic (SRRP, debits/credits).
Provide UW input on filed rate changes, classification reviews, and ISO circular adoption decisions.
Help translate underwriting logic into system rules, Athena prompts, and Aimee appetite gate criteria.
Participate in carrier partner reviews, reinsurance meetings, and regulatory audits as the technical UW lead.
Serve as the primary underwriting subject matter expert for Athena, MGT’s AI underwriting agent — defining the judgment logic, appetite rules, and escalation criteria that govern how the agent operates.
Author and maintain UW agent prompts across lines of business — translating underwriting guidelines, class-level appetite, and coverage intent into structured AI instructions.
Review Athena outputs regularly — identify misapplied appetite, gaps in reasoning, or edge cases not yet addressed, and iterate on agent instructions accordingly.
Partner with engineering and product on new agent capabilities — including referral routing, schedule rating logic, and coverage recommendation features.
Help establish quality benchmarks and review cadences to ensure AI-assisted decisions stay consistent with MGT’s underwriting standards over time.
Mentor and develop underwriting staff — build technical depth, coverage knowledge, and consistent judgment across the team.
Create and maintain internal UW training resources, decision frameworks, and coverage interpretation guides.
Champion a culture of underwriting rigor, intellectual honesty, and continuous learning.