Head of Underwriting

Key Responsibilities

• Define and execute underwriting strategy aligned with company risk appetite and growth goals
• Establish clear underwriting frameworks, guidelines, and authority structures
• Lead and develop the underwriting team to ensure consistent, high-quality decision-making
• Manage, mentor, and scale a team of underwriters
• Set performance expectations, KPIs, and accountability standards
• Foster a culture of discipline, collaboration, and continuous improvement
• Own portfolio performance, including loss ratio, exposure, and concentration risk
• Maintain balance between growth targets and profitability
• Monitor trends and adjust underwriting strategy based on performance and market conditions
• Actively manage catastrophe exposure, including wildfire and other perils
• Ensure alignment between underwriting decisions and pricing models
• Partner with actuarial and data teams to refine segmentation and risk selection
• Maintain balance between growth targets and profitability
• Drive adoption of data-driven underwriting tools, models, and risk scores
• Collaborate with data science teams to improve model performance and usability
• Ensure underwriting decisions are informed by robust analytics and insights
• Partner with reinsurance to align underwriting strategy with risk transfer programs
• Support optimization of retention and exposure
• Ensure underwriting practices meet regulatory requirements and internal controls
• Maintain clear documentation, auditability, and consistency
• Support regulatory interactions and internal reviews
• Cross-functional leadership
• Collaborate with claims, finance, and revenue teams to align on performance and strategy
• Provide insights into loss drivers and emerging risks
• Serve as a key advisor to executive leadership on portfolio risk and growth

Qualifications

• 10–15+ years of underwriting experience, preferably in property insurance
• Active Property & Casualty (P&C) insurance license in at least one U.S. state is required. If not currently licensed in California, candidates must be able to obtain a California Non-Resident Property & Casualty license within 90 days of hire
• Proven leadership experience managing and developing underwriting teams
• Strong expertise in catastrophe-exposed risks; wildfire experience strongly preferred
• Deep understanding of underwriting, pricing, and portfolio management
• Experience in insurtech or data-driven underwriting environments preferred

Pay

Compensation And Benefits
Competitive salary plus equity stock options
Flexibility to work from anywhere in the United States
Unlimited PTO, including sick leave and company holidays
Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and life insurance. (25% paid by employee, 75% covered by Delos including dependents)
401(k) retirement savings plan
Professional development opportunities and tuition assistance
The Pay Range For This Role Is 175,000 - 200,000 USD per year(Remote (San Francisco, CA, US))