The Vice President, Underwriting is a senior leadership role accountable for defining, leading, and building the underwriting function across all Employee Benefits product lines. This executive will oversee a multi‑disciplinary underwriting organization and serve as a primary underwriting advisor to the SVP of Employee Benefits and leadership team on pricing strategy, risk selection, portfolio performance, and market growth opportunities.
This role is ideal for a strategic, entrepreneurial, and tech‑forward underwriting leader with deep product expertise and a strong track record building scalable teams and processes for high‑growth Employee Benefits businesses.
Key Responsibilities
- Serve as the underwriting leader for all Employee Benefits products, ensuring consistent, profitable, and market‑competitive underwriting strategies.
- Drive underwriting governance, guidelines, philosophy, and portfolio performance.
- Partner with Product, Distribution, Actuarial, Finance, and Operations to align underwriting strategy with market growth ambitions.
- Provide thought leadership in emerging market trends, pricing needs, and competitive dynamics, particularly in the small business segment.
- Define and maintain the EB Underwriting Governance Framework, ensuring consistent decision-making and clear risk-appetite management.
- Use UW insights to influence EB divisional strategy, portfolio mix and pricing approaches.
- Lead, mentor, and develop a multi‑level underwriting team across product lines.
- Recruit top‑tier talent and build a future‑ready team highly skilled in data‑driven and automated underwriting.
- Establish clear performance expectations, career paths, and succession planning within the underwriting function.
- Establish management and departmental governance routines that ensure consistent execution and performance accountability.
- Develop a leadership bench and structured succession plans across all tiers of UW leadership.
- Oversee underwriting strategy and execution for large, complex aggregation opportunities such as:
- PEOs (Professional Employer Organizations)
- Payroll companies
- General Agencies (GAs)
- National brokers
- Develop scalable, repeatable frameworks for evaluating aggregator risk, pricing, guarantees, and block‑on‑block underwriting.
- Deeply understand distribution economics and underwriting levers within the aggregator ecosystem.
- Define aggregator specific governance standards to ensure disciplined growth, pricing alignment and controlled risk exposure.
- Champion adoption of modern underwriting technologies, automated risk engines, and AI‑driven decision support tools.
- Collaborate with Technology partners to build digital underwriting workflows, rules engines, dashboards, and analytics capabilities.
- Improve quote‑to‑bind cycle time, accuracy, and consistency through automation and modernization.
- Use data insights to inform risk selection, segmentation, pricing recommendations and performance improvement.
- Architect underwriting processes that scale—from intake to risk assessment to issuance.
- Establish efficient workflows for small‑business underwriting while ensuring appropriate segmentation for larger or complex cases.
- Implement process controls, audit routines, and quality assurance practices.
- Partner with Operations to ensure downstream processes (policy issue, servicing, billing) align with underwriting requirements.
- Define underwriting quality thresholds and embed continuous improvement routines
- Serve as a key member of the Employee Benefits leadership team, contributing to enterprise strategy and long‑term planning.
- Partner closely with:
- Distribution leaders on sales strategies and broker/aggregator engagement
- Product & Actuarial on pricing and portfolio management
- Claims on risk‑experience feedback loops
- Technology on modernization and automation initiatives
- Own underwriting profitability goals and portfolio analytics.
- Monitor trends, mix of business, loss ratios, rate actions, and underwriting leakage.
- Ensure reserve adequacy and collaborate with Actuarial during annual planning cycles.
1. Strategic Leadership & Underwriting Excellence
2. Build & Scale a High‑Performing Underwriting Organization
3. Complex Case & Aggregation Underwriting
4. Technology, Data, Automation, and AI Enablement
5. Process Design, Operational Rigor & Continuous Improvement
6. Stakeholder Leadership & Cross‑Functional Partnership
7. Portfolio, Performance, & Risk Management
Qualifications
- 15+ years of Employee Benefits underwriting experience with deep knowledge of small‑group and mid‑market segments.
- Direct experience underwriting Dental, Vision, Life, STD, LTD, Paid Leaves, and Supplemental Health.
- Proven leadership of underwriting teams; VP‑level or equivalent experience preferred.
- Demonstrated ability to underwrite and negotiate large aggregators: PEOs, payroll providers, GAs, and national brokers.
- Strong process‑engineering mindset with experience building underwriting operations from ground up.
- Experience implementing technology modernization, automation, and AI‑enabled decisioning.
- Highly collaborative, entrepreneurial, tech‑forward mindset.
- Excellent communication skills and comfort presenting at the executive level.
Why Join Us?
Influence the future of a rapidly scaling Employee Benefits business.
Build and transform the underwriting organization during a pivotal growth phase.
Work alongside forward‑thinking leaders embracing technology, data, and modern underwriting.
High‑visibility role reporting directly to the SVP and shaping enterprise strategy.
Skills Required
- 15+ years of Employee Benefits underwriting experience
- Direct experience underwriting Dental, Vision, Life, STD, LTD
- Proven leadership of underwriting teams
- Experience implementing technology modernization and AI
- Excellent communication skills and comfort presenting at the executive level
Protective Life Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Protective Life and has not been reviewed or approved by Protective Life.
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Retirement Support — A pension plan alongside a 401(k) with employer match is repeatedly highlighted and considered a standout feature. Feedback suggests these offerings provide strong long‑term financial security.
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Healthcare Strength — Medical, dental, vision, and prescription coverage are complemented by HSA/FSA options with company contributions and wellness incentives. Feedback suggests the breadth of health benefits is comprehensive.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Paid time off and holidays are frequently cited as positives, with parental leave and adoption assistance available. Feedback suggests time‑off policies support work‑life balance.
Protective Life Insights
What We Do
Protective Life Corporation (Protective) provides financial services through the production, distribution and administration of insurance and investment products throughout the United States. Protective traces its roots to its flagship company founded in 1907, Protective Life Insurance Company. Throughout its more than 110-year history, Protective’s growth and success can be largely attributed to its ongoing commitment to serving people and doing the right thing — for its employees, distributors and, most importantly, its customers. Protective’s home office is located in Birmingham, Alabama, and its 3,000+ employees work across the United States. As of June 30, 2020, Protective had assets of approximately $123 billion. Protective Life Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dai-ichi Life Holdings,
