About the roleWhat you need to know:Are you an experienced underwriter with an appetite for providing excellent customer service whilst balancing risk and resolution of cases? If so, look no further for your next career challenge! We’re looking for a new Senior Underwriter to join our Underwriting department within Customer Services. We are looking for someone with at least seven years experience of underwriting and a current working underwriting authority of a minimum of £1.5m Life, £675,000 Critical Illness and £60,000pa Income Protection. You will become part of a team of Underwriters who work closely together with other Customer Service colleagues to make sure the needs of the business, customers and distributors are all met. What we expect from you:· You will have a proven working and higher level knowledge of Income Protection, Life, Critical Illness and disability products· You will provide fair and balanced underwriting decisions using the appropriate amount of evidence necessary· You will assess all applications that aren’t accepted by our online underwriting engine – initial applications, additional information, amendments plus assess medical and financial risks and evidence.· You will do so in a timely manner within agreed Service Level Agreements and always with the customer and our reputation in mind. · You will also provide a telephone service for pre-sale enquiries, being the first point of contact for our advisers when they are looking to place business with us, providing accurate indications of underwriting decisions and working with Sales to ensure advisers consider us their number one provider. · You will have general knowledge of insurance industry codes and current practices · You will liaise with Customer Services, Pricing, Sales and our reinsurance partners when required, representing the Underwriting department in a positive and collaborative way· You will develop a good understanding of the business and contribute to ‘best practice’ overall for our customers and colleagues· You will be a Point of Contact for cases that require escalations and also support the complaints team with resolving and communicating complaints outcomes· You will be a Point of Contact for other underwriters and support, train and coach those less experienced within the department. This may be either on an ad hoc or more formal basis depending on the individual requirements.· You will be innovative, forward thinking and able to identify opportunities for improvements in our philosophy, processes and procedures. · You will be able to demonstrate good lateral thinking and proactive problem-solving skills, have sound decision making skills and the ability to recognize risk events, manage and escalate these where appropriate.· You will display role model behaviours in line with company values, have good organizational and time management skills and be reliable and flexible.