Manager, Underwriting - Life

Manager, Underwriting - Life

Are you passionate about being part of a team at a Fortune 100 company with nearly $70 billion in annual sales that delivers extraordinary care to help individuals and businesses prepare for and protect their future? If so, then Nationwide Financial could be the place for you! At Nationwide®, "on your side" goes beyond just words. Our customers and partners are at the center of everything we do and we're looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.

Nationwide is seeking an experienced people leader to step into a critical Life Underwriting leadership role supporting traditional & fluidless underwriting processes. This is an opportunity to lead a team of underwriting professionals responsible for delivering strong service, sound risk assessment, and a consistent partner experience across the business.

The ideal external candidate will bring a blend of deep life underwriting knowledge, proven people leadership, and the ability to lead through change. We are looking for a leader who can develop talent, elevate performance, create accountability, and foster collaboration across a geographically dispersed team.

This role is especially well suited for candidates who have led underwriting teams in complex environments and who can balance day-to-day operational leadership with longer-term team development. Experience leading varied levels of underwriting talent, from early-career analysts to more tenured specialists and consultants, will be important in this position.

This role is eligible for fully remote work.

This role does not qualify for employer-sponsored work authorization. Nationwide does not participate in the Stem OPT Extension program.

Job Description Summary

Our underwriters work hard to provide the exceptional customer experience for which Nationwide is known. Actively engaging with our firms and financial professionals to get to know their clients and their needs builds our understanding of the market, what is needed to win business and put our best offer out first. If you thrive working autonomously, making decisions on a variety of impactful issues and continuing to learn and adapt to grow, we want to know more about you!

As a Manager, you'll lead the day-to-day operations for the Life Underwriting team within Nationwide Financials' Life New Business organization. The team is responsible for mortality risk assessment and protecting Nationwide against sooner than expected mortality expenses as well as morbidity risk management for long term care insurance. You'll lead the team responsible to approve, modify, or decline applications through an underwriting assessment including evaluation of medical history, occupational hazards, financial background, insurable interest and other relevant information.

The business mix consists mostly of universal life, term, long term care and variable universal life. The team handles the largest, highly sophisticated cases.

Key Responsibilities:

• Leads and provides oversight to team roles and responsibilities while creating a highly engaged culture. Forward facing; handles performance of customer satisfaction, interaction quality and relationships. Focuses on maintaining relationships both internally and externally. Establishes practices for quality, production standards, relationship management, delivering on customer requests and schedule to adhere to compliance guidelines.
• Participates in, sponsors or owns major projects, leads the activities and staff providing guidance to supporting departments on team - assists in identifying and establishing relationship management guidelines and operational improvements that advance delivery of services to customers aligned with industry and regulatory requirements. Projects often include industry wide committees and involvement of key internal and external partners.
• Hires qualified and highly engaged underwriters. Drives a culture of coaching and feedback for personal and professional guidance. Develops talent in the organization for succession planning and handles all performance management tasks and related functions for team. Ensures associates are current and knowledgeable of the industry, competition and regulatory environment. Promotes industry training and involvement in related organizations.
• Owns the service relationships requiring a high level of technical expertise, and high touch, highly satisfied relationships are crucial for client and asset retention. Helps build and strengthen relationships through presentations, intermediaries and/or direct contact. Partners closely with Sales to ensure overall satisfaction with Nationwide. Develops staff to find ways to deepen Nationwide relationships and build additional sales opportunities for our Sales partners.
• Supervises activities to ensure clients are served timely and meets/exceeds quality standards. Responds to and resolves service issues and calls from Sales, firms, producers, and customers. Works with…