Carrier Partnerships Lead

Carrier Partnerships Lead

Harper is an AI-native commercial insurance company in San Francisco. We're not bolting AI onto insurance — we're rebuilding the entire business as software, on a simple bet: turning expert human judgment into compute is one of the largest transitions left to make, and a trillion-dollar industry still run 90% by hand is the place to prove it. We've grown ~100x in the last year and we move at that speed — on-site, in person, long days, very high standards.

Almost no one joins Harper for insurance; they join to build the company that replaces how it works.

One appointment can open an industry. One weak escalation path can leave hundreds of accounts stuck behind the same underwriting desk. Harper's AI is generating more qualified demand than most brokerages see in a decade, and demand only matters if there are carriers, wholesalers, MGAs, and programs willing and able to take it. You own those relationships at the portfolio level: access, appointments, capacity, economics, senior relationships, and the escalation channels that get a stuck account moving.

This is a relationship job, done on foot. You are the face of Harper to each carrier, and you stomp the ground with them day in and day out. You send carriers their urgency list — what we need quoted this week, what's stuck, what's about to be lost. You track outstanding binds and upcoming renewals across every market and make sure the carrier sees them before they become a problem.

You know who controls appetite, capacity, and operations at each partner, and they know you. What you do not do is place accounts: the licensed account team selects the market, negotiates terms, and makes the recommendation on each one. You build the doors they walk through and the phone number they call when a door sticks.

Why now:
Harper is expanding its insurance reach across offices and lines, and the constraint is shifting from demand to market access. Carrier trust, appointments, and capacity get more important as the machine gets better at producing submissions, not less.

• Build and keep the market map. Know Harper's carriers, wholesalers, MGAs, programs, appointments, constraints, and real production path by line, class, and state — and keep relationship history, agreements, appetite changes, contacts, and commitments current.

• Open the right doors. Win appointments, preferred access, new programs, and senior relationships where Harper has credible demand, and take each effort to a real decision instead of leaving it open.

• Be the face of Harper to each carrier. Own the relationship with the people who control appetite, capacity, operations, and distribution strategy. Show up, in person and on the phone, until they think of Harper first.

• Run the urgency list. Send each carrier what needs attention now — pending quotes, outstanding binds, upcoming renewals, stuck submissions — and track it until it's cleared.

• Turn demand into a carrier case. Show carriers the volume, risk mix, submission quality, conversion, and operating capability that justify deeper access, then negotiate the commissions, fees, service expectations, data exchange, and escalation paths Harper can support.

• Manage portfolio performance. Track what Harper sends, what markets quote, what binds, where service breaks, and which relationships deserve more investment. Carrier reviews tie relationship effort to sent, quoted, bound, response, and service outcomes.

• Create clean escalation paths. Make sure account-level teams know exactly who to call and how to move a stuck issue, without taking over their ownership of the account.

• You've built carrier, wholesaler, MGA, or distribution partnerships in commercial insurance, and you've personally…