Guardian Life · 18 hours ago
Lead of Underwriting Transformation and Modernization
United States
Full-time
Remote
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$110K/yr - $181K/yr
10+ years expGuardian Life is seeking a Lead of Underwriting Transformation and Modernization to drive the transformation of their life underwriting ecosystem. This role involves overseeing modernization initiatives, championing innovation, and leading a team to enhance underwriting capabilities and processes.
DentalFinancial ServicesHardwareInsuranceLife Insurance
No H1B
U.S. Citizen Only
Responsibilities
Lead underwriting transformation initiatives, guiding modernization of systems, tools, workflow design, and digital underwriting capabilities to support Guardian’s future state operating model
Oversee the Underwriting Transformation Specialists, setting direction, prioritizing modernization work, and ensuring new capabilities are successfully implemented and adopted across underwriting teams
Direct life underwriting operations across multiple teams, setting priorities and allocating resources to align with business objectives
Champion adoption of modern underwriting tools and processes, ensuring seamless integration into daily workflows
Build and maintain strong relationships with reinsurance partners, ensuring effective treaty application, resolving complex facultative issues, and collaborating on process improvements
Strengthen partnerships with distribution leaders, agencies, and field partners to ensure alignment and service excellence
Develop and communicate strategic plans and budgets, ensuring operational execution and alignment with corporate goals
Provide leadership to subordinate people leaders, coaching and developing talent to build a high-performing organization
Oversee underwriting-related reporting, including operational dashboards, capacity and productivity metrics, and risk reporting in partnership with underwriting risk teams
Partner with Claims to understand and monitor claims exposure, trends, and root-cause insights relevant to underwriting practices and mortality expectations
Ensure operational excellence, including adherence to underwriting guidelines, quality standards, and regulatory compliance
Resolve systemic impediments to excellence, ensuring customer satisfaction and operational efficiency
Negotiate key agreements and manage vendor relationships to support underwriting modernization and risk governance
Qualification
Required
Proven experience leading underwriting modernization or transformation efforts, such as system enhancements, workflow redesign, automation, underwriting engine improvements, or adoption of digital tools
Deep life underwriting experience, including oversight of large dollar amount, complex, impaired‑risk, and escalated cases requiring senior‑level judgment
Experience developing and implementing strategic plans, budgets, and policies to achieve business objectives
Strong familiarity with underwriting technologies and data sources, and the ability to work with Technology and Product teams to evolve system capabilities
Strong knowledge of underwriting guidelines, risk assessment, and regulatory requirements
Experience leading and developing underwriting managers, including oversight of cases above individual retention levels that require advanced judgment and senior‑level underwriting expertise
Experience collaborating with reinsurance partners, including applying treaty provisions, navigating facultative submissions, and resolving complex treaty‑related case questions
Minimum 10+ years of life underwriting experience, including oversight of high dollar cases, complex and impaired-risk cases, appeals, facultative submissions, and escalations requiring senior-level judgement
Benefits
Skill-building
Leadership development
Philanthropic opportunities
Flexible and inclusive benefits and resources
Company
Guardian Life
Guardian Life Insurance Company of America (Guardian) is one of the country’s leading mutual insurers.
5001-10000 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
unknown2016-08-23Non Equity Assistance
Leadership Team
Andrew McMahon
Chairman and CEO
Michael Prestileo
Chief Strategy Officer
Recent News
2025-12-11
Company data provided by crunchbase