Underwriter: Technical

About the Role
As a Technical Underwriter, you will support sound underwriting outcomes through senior technical judgement and specialist expertise, applying underwriting guidelines, mandates and risk controls to complex, unusual or high exposure risks, and providing authoritative technical input across the underwriting function.

Key Responsibilities
• Provide senior technical input and approval on highly complex or non‑standard endorsements where specialist expertise is required.
• Act as a senior technical escalation point for complex broker or internal underwriting queries.
• Interpret complex policy wordings, clauses and coverage intent.
• Approve or advise on complex underwriting decisions within specialist mandate.
• Apply judgement on edge‑of‑appetite and emerging risks.
• Manage workload relating to technical reviews, referrals and specialist input across underwriting teams.
• Ensure technical decisions, interpretations and approvals are clearly documented and defensible.
• Perform or validate advanced risk analysis for complex, unusual or emerging risks.
• Challenge assumptions and methodologies used in underwriting assessments.
• Provide technical input were risks approach tolerance thresholds.
• Review and approve surveys, internal surveys, risk requirements and exposure scenarios requiring specialist judgement.
• Determine appropriateness of alternative controls and mitigations within mandate.
• Support skills development and knowledge transfer within the department.
• Provide technical underwriting / insurance training to the department as a whole. Minimum

Requirements:
• National Senior Certificate (Grade 12) and bachelor’s degree in finance, Business or related field.
• A full qualification in Short-Term Insurance.
• Adherence to FSCA Fit & Proper requirements; (Honesty and integrity, Qualification, CPD, RE5).
• A minimum of five years’ experience in short term insurance, with at least five years’ underwriting specific experience and in-depth exposure to domestic, commercial and agricultural insurance underwriting at senior level.
• Demonstrated experience in technical underwriting and first‑line people leadership or mentoring.
• Recognised technical credibility within the underwriting discipline. Key Skills & Attributes:
• Strong technical underwriting knowledge across relevant product lines.
• High level of professional credibility within the underwriting function.
• Expert knowledge of underwriting principles, complex policy wordings, endorsements and coverage intent.
• Strong understanding of risk aggregation, exposure modelling and specialist mitigation approaches.
• Ability to interpret and advise on ambiguous or emerging risk scenarios.
• High‑level analytical and problem‑solving capability.
• Ability to influence underwriting decisions through technical authority rather than positional power.
• Competence with AI tools (e.g., Copilot, ChatGPT) for research, drafting and administrative support.