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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Underwriting Support Analyst

💰 $60,000 - $90,000

InsuranceUnderwritingRisk ManagementFinanceOperations

🎯 Role Definition

The Underwriting Support Analyst provides critical operational and analytical support to underwriting teams by preparing risk submissions, validating data, processing quotes and endorsements, and ensuring adherence to underwriting guidelines and regulatory requirements. This role combines insurance domain knowledge, data validation and workflow coordination to accelerate policy issuance, improve risk selection, and reduce administrative bottlenecks across personal, commercial, or specialty lines.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Junior Underwriting Assistant / Underwriting Intern
  • Insurance Customer Service Representative or Policy Processor
  • Claims Processor or Risk Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Underwriting Analyst / Senior Underwriting Analyst
  • Underwriter (Line Underwriter or Technical Underwriter)
  • Underwriting Team Lead / Underwriting Manager

Lateral Moves:

  • Risk Analyst
  • Product Analyst (Insurance Product Management)
  • Policy Administration Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Intake, triage and validate incoming submissions and applications, ensuring completeness of documentation, accuracy of insured and risk information, and alignment with underwriting product rules and appetite.
  • Prepare detailed risk summaries and submission packages for underwriters, highlighting exposures, prior loss history, policy limits, and critical underwriting considerations to accelerate decision-making.
  • Perform initial risk assessment and eligibility checks against underwriting guidelines, referral rules and binding authority matrices, escalating exceptions and complex risks to the appropriate underwriter.
  • Obtain, verify and synthesize third-party data (e.g., claims history, exposure reports, credit scores, inspection reports, loss runs) to support risk evaluation and premium calculation.
  • Generate and distribute quotes, proposals and illustrations using rating engines and quoting platforms, ensuring pricing accuracy, proper endorsements, and correct application of discounts or surcharges.
  • Process policy transactions including new business issuance, renewals, mid-term adjustments, reinstatements and endorsements within the policy administration system, maintaining audit trails and documentation.
  • Maintain and update policy records, endorsements, and rating changes in the AMS/Policy Admin system (e.g., Guidewire PolicyCenter, Duck Creek, Applied Epic) to ensure data integrity and compliance with regulatory recordkeeping.
  • Reconcile billing and premium changes with underwriting actions and coordinate with billing teams to resolve discrepancies and short-term payment issues.
  • Support underwriting portfolio monitoring by creating and distributing periodic reports on bind rates, declinations, quote turnaround time, loss ratios, and pipeline metrics to underwriting management.
  • Coordinate and schedule field inspections, engineering surveys, and third-party reports; review resulting documentation for underwriter use and follow up on outstanding items.
  • Administer delegated authority programs and manage broker relationships by validating binder limits, endorsements, and delegated underwriting notes to ensure contractual compliance.
  • Investigate and resolve submission and policy lifecycle exceptions, working cross-functionally with underwriting, product, claims, legal and IT to remove operational blockers.
  • Maintain underwriting rule sets, underwriting checklists, and process documentation; propose continuous improvements to reduce cycle time and standardize decision support materials.
  • Assist underwriters with complex account preparation, including multi-line placements, facultative reinsurance referrals, and layered policy structures, ensuring appropriate documentation and referral rationale.
  • Support rate and rule change implementations by updating system configurations, communicating changes to brokers and internal teams, and testing rating impacts prior to deployment.
  • Perform periodic reviews of in-force policies for exposure changes, expiration handling and renewal recommendations as part of the renewal workflow cadence.
  • Analyze claims patterns and loss activity to surface underwriting concerns, recommend changes to coverage terms or pricing, and support underwriting loss prevention initiatives.
  • Maintain compliance with regulatory, company and product-specific requirements by auditing files, ensuring appropriate anti-fraud checks and performing due-diligence on high-risk accounts.
  • Use data tools and spreadsheets to perform ad-hoc analyses, segmentation of submissions, and trend reporting that supports underwriting strategy and profitability targets.
  • Facilitate communication between underwriters, brokers, and policyholders to clarify terms, obtain additional information, and provide status updates on submission and policy activity.
  • Manage and prioritize daily work queues to meet SLA targets for quote turnaround, issuance, and renewal servicing while documenting decisions and maintaining an auditable file trail.
  • Train and mentor junior underwriting support staff and act as a subject-matter resource for underwriting processes, system use, and best practices.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist with user acceptance testing (UAT) for process enhancements, system upgrades and rating engine changes to validate underwriting outcomes.
  • Support continuous improvement initiatives using Lean/Six Sigma principles to streamline underwriting operations and reduce manual steps.
  • Maintain knowledge base articles, process maps, and training collateral to improve team onboarding and reduce error rates.
  • Participate in cross-functional project teams focused on product launches, regulatory changes, or distribution channel integrations.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Insurance underwriting process knowledge (commercial, personal, or specialty lines) and familiarity with underwriting guidelines and appetite statements.
  • Proficiency with policy administration systems (e.g., Guidewire PolicyCenter, Duck Creek, Applied Epic, Insurity).
  • Experience using rating engines and quoting systems, including manual rate calculations and automated rating workflows.
  • Strong Excel skills (pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, advanced formulas) for data reconciliation and reporting.
  • Experience with CRM or broker portals and electronic submission platforms.
  • Ability to interpret and extract key insights from loss runs, inspection reports, financial statements and exposure schedules.
  • Familiarity with regulatory compliance concepts, anti-money laundering (AML) checks, and documentation required for audits.
  • Working knowledge of data reporting tools (Power BI, Tableau, Qlik) or SQL for query-based data pulls and dashboarding.
  • Understanding of reinsurance referrals, facultative placement workflows and binder management.
  • Experience with workflow/orchestration tools, ticketing systems (JIRA, ServiceNow) and document management systems.
  • Basic scripting or process automation experience (e.g., VBA macros, RPA tools like UiPath/Automation Anywhere) to reduce manual tasks.
  • Experience preparing management reporting for underwriting KPIs such as hit ratio, quote-to-bind, and loss ratio.

Soft Skills

  • Strong analytical mindset with attention to detail and proven ability to reconcile complex data across multiple systems.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills to interact with underwriters, brokers, and internal stakeholders.
  • Customer-focused service orientation and the ability to manage broker and policyholder expectations with professionalism.
  • Organized planner capable of prioritizing competing deadlines and managing high-volume workflows.
  • Problem-solving aptitude with a continuous improvement mindset and willingness to propose process enhancements.
  • Collaboration skills and the ability to work cross-functionally with Claims, Product, IT and Finance.
  • Adaptability to changing underwriting guidelines and regulatory environments.
  • Confidentiality and integrity when handling sensitive underwriting and customer information.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Associate degree in Business, Finance, Insurance or related field; or equivalent work experience in insurance operations.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Finance, Business Administration, Risk Management, Economics, or a related discipline.
  • Industry certifications (CPCU, ARM, ARe, AU, Certified Insurance Counselor) desirable.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Risk Management and Insurance
  • Finance, Accounting or Economics
  • Business Administration
  • Data Analytics / Information Systems

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 1–4 years of experience in underwriting support, insurance operations, policy administration, or related roles.

Preferred:

  • 3+ years supporting underwriters in a commercial or specialty lines environment, with hands-on experience in policy systems, quoting engines, and portfolio reporting.
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