Commercial Casualty Underwriting Leader (Director)

About Shepherd

Commercial insurance still runs on processes built decades ago. Underwriting is slow, and pricing leans on broad averages instead of the specifics of each risk. Technology can change how commercial risk is priced and managed, as long as it's paired with real underwriting expertise. The companies that get this right will shape the next era of the industry, and Shepherd intends to lead it.

Shepherd is a Managing General Underwriter (MGU) building the fastest and smartest AI-native commercial risk platform in the industry, where underwriters, data, and automation work together. The result is faster decisions for our broker partners and pricing that reflects the actual risk. We started where the gap is widest: construction and energy, two of the most complex and highest-hazard segments in commercial insurance. Today we write Primary and Excess Casualty, Builder's Risk, and Workers' Compensation distributed through a nationwide network of retail brokers. Our mission is to make risk frictionless for the builders and operators shaping the physical world, from concept through construction and into decades of operation.

Shepherd has raised over $67M, including a $42M Series B led by Intact Private Capital. Intact also partners with Shepherd to provide capacity across its insurance products. Shepherd is also backed by leading institutional investors, including Costanoa Ventures, Spark Capital, Susa Ventures, and Y Combinator.

About You

• 10+ years of commercial casualty underwriting, with deep expertise in retail middle market and large accounts across classes such as real estate, retail, hospitality, manufacturing, and technology.
• A proven record of profitable growth: originating new business, quoting, binding, and building a casualty book while managing to loss-ratio and combined-ratio targets.
• Strong technical command of risk selection, exposure and loss analysis, loss development and trends, pricing, and coverage across Commercial General Liability, Commercial Auto, Workers' Compensation and Excess Casualty.
• Experience structuring both primary and excess casualty programs, including guaranteed-cost and loss-sensitive programs such as large deductibles and self-insured retentions.
• Sound judgment on contractual risk transfer, additional insured requirements, manuscript endorsements, and emerging exposures.
• Disciplined portfolio management, including limits, accumulation, and clash exposure.
• Established retail broker relationships at the regional and national level that can drive submission flow from day one.
• People leadership experience leading, mentoring, or managing underwriters, including setting authority and running underwriting audits.
• Executive presence to present strategy and results to leadership, capacity partners, and reinsurers.
• Comfort with ambiguity: you make sound decisions with incomplete information and adapt quickly as the business evolves.
• Willingness to travel about 25% to meet brokers, partners, and the team.
• A bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.

About the Role

Shepherd's underwriting approach is client-centric with a heavy emphasis on an efficient process. Our goal is to leverage our technology and data to make quick, informed underwriting decisions tailored to our clients' specific needs.

• Define the strategy for retail commercial casualty, including target classes, lines of business, limits, attachment points, geographies, appetite, and growth and loss-ratio targets.
• Support the development of underwriting guidelines, authority framework, referral rules, and rating approach.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Data to design the submission-to-bind workflow, pricing tools, and exposure and loss-trend views.
• Underwrite new and renewal primary and excess casualty within your authority.
• Own premium, profit, loss-ratio, retention, and expense results for the vertical.
• Use your retail broker relationships to drive submission flow in the first year, and serve as Shepherd's senior casualty voice with brokers, clients, and other stakeholders.
• Hire, coach, and grow a team of casualty underwriters and support staff as the book scales.
• Work with Corporate Underwriting to help set letters of authority, run underwriting audits, and coach from the results.
• Work with Claims, Actuarial, Customer Experience and Finance so the business is underwritten, serviced, and reported well.

This is a position based in our New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Dallas–Fort Worth offices.

Compensation

The base salary range for this role is $250,000 – $350,000, plus an annual performance bonus and equity in Shepherd. Offers within the range depend on location, experience, and the relationships and market following you bring.

How We Work

Shepherd runs on four values. Here's what each one means in this seat.

• Think big, build big. We exist to protect progress and the industries that rely on it. You're building a casualty vertical meant to scale nationally, so the guidelines, team, and tools get designed for where the book is going, not just where it starts.
• Win together. We rise as one. We support each other, raise the bar, and celebrate collective success. As the first leader of this vertical, you set the standard every casualty underwriter after you inherits.
• Cross the aisle. Collaboration wins. We listen deeply, work across boundaries, and prioritize shared success over individual lanes. The best underwriting tools here come from underwriters who sit with engineers and data scientists, and much of this job is making that partnership work.
• Go get it. We act with urgency, move with confidence, take smart risks, and push forward with intention. Nobody hands you the appetite, the broker list, or the first submission. You build the plan, make the calls, and bind the first deal.

Benefits

• Premium Healthcare: 100% contribution to top-tier health, dental, and vision
• Fertility Benefits & Family Building Support
• Unlimited PTO: Flexibility to take the time off, recharge, and perform
• Daily Lunches, Dinners & Snacks: We work together, and enjoy meals together too
• Offices in SF, NYC, Dallas–Fort Worth, Chicago & LA
• Professional Development: Access to premium coaching, including leadership development
• Competitive 401(k) Plan
• Dog-Friendly Office: Plenty of dogs to play with and make friends with in the SF office