Director, Underwriting Excellence & Compliance

Job Overview

The Director, Underwriting Excellence & Compliance is a result driven, collaborative leader who contributes to Wawanesa’s success by directing, planning, and implementing national strategies and initiatives to support achievement of business goals for Personal Lines across Canada. This Director will lead the first line controls for compliance governance for Personal Lines Auto and Property Products, and provides guidance on underwriting strategy, national improvement initiatives and governance.

Job Responsibilities

• Ensure that Personal Lines Rating and Products changes meet the various regulatory requirements.
• Accountable for first line compliance oversight working closely with second line compliance resources for all necessary regulatory reporting of rating, product or underwriting errors that may occur.
• Lead a team of specialists that manage the rating, product or underwriting defect resolution process including triage of reported defects and work in conjunction with Application Delivery teams to develop suitable resolution, create remediation plans, and generate all related reporting.
• Maintain an in-depth knowledge of market dynamics and product trends, the competitive environment, economic changes or trends, regulatory actions and decisions.
• Participate and contribute to the development of personal lines underwriting strategies and business plans.
• Lead national initiatives that support the strategic direction and financial targets of personal lines in Canada, collaborating with cross-function teams to ensure timely and efficient implementation.
• Oversee the development, communication, and maintenance underwriting guidelines, procedures and processes for personal lines.
• Comprehensively analyze initiatives and recommend an informed course of action on initiatives and action plans to drive results.
• Oversee the development and execution of strategic roadmaps to ensure projects and initiatives have appropriate business resources and align to our organizational strategies.
• Develop the training strategy for personal lines of business, working in partnership with various other teams to establish national training priorities and delivery schedule.
• Provides leadership to attract/retain high quality talent.
• Creates an environment that encourages productivity, collaboration, teamwork, a high level of professionalism, learning and development across the underwriting function.
• Commitment to continuous learning and leadership development.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Minimum of ten years Property and Casualty industry experience, with five years in a leadership role.
• University degree in Business, Law, or related field.
• Well-honed ability to understand, interpret and apply legislation, regulations, and regulatory guidance in a business setting.
• A thorough understanding of compliance, monitoring, and reporting frameworks, a proven pragmatic approach to dealing with compliance requirements.
• Expert leadership skills with the ability to influence and gain respect, credibility, and confidence from others.
• Possess personal characteristics of a strong leader – including personal resilience, adaptability, self-awareness, and the charisma to develop and communicate a vision with passion.
• Ability to make excellent and well justified decisions in complex and high-pressure situations.
• Excellent organizational and time management skills, including the ability to manage and execute multiple projects within required timelines and expectations.
• Strong business acumen with excellent analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to recognize and identify critical issues.
• Ability to maintain discretion in recognizing, protecting, and adhering to absolute confidentiality of highly sensitive or confidential information.
• Ability to synthesize information from various sources, independently identify and resolve problems quickly, using strong decision-making skills to achieve the appropriate result.
• Must be able to multi-task, take initiative, and work well independently with strong process orientation.
• Excellent ability to collaborate with a variety of team members and other colleagues to achieve superior outcomes.
• Ability to innovate and pivot quickly.
• Strong knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite.
• Bilingualism (French and English) is an asset.
• Ability and willingness to travel.