Head of Long Tail Underwriting Commercial Lines - (M/F)

Whatever their stage of life, we provide over 100+ million customers with the products and services they need to progress. From insurance to personal protection, and savings to wealth management, no matter the need we’re always there for them. And we’re always there for our employees. In 50 countries, we work hard to inspire pride and a sense of belonging in our people. To provide opportunities that challenge them, inspire them, and reward them. And to create a culture that’s open, supportive, and empowering. Because we know that’s the real secret to success – and the best way for us to keep building a better world for both our customers and the talented people who put them first.

Your work environment :

The headquarters of the AXA Group (GIE AXA) brings together our corporate activities. It provides guidance and support to subsidiaries around the world, to ensure the coordination and monitoring of the Group's global strategy, the application of its standards, the consistency of commercial approaches and the sharing of best practices. The headquarters gathers approximately 1000 employees and is distinguished by its strong international culture (45 nationalities), which makes it a rich and stimulating place to work.

Within the Group, you will join the Group Underwriting Office as Head of Long Tail Underwriting – Commercial Lines. The newly created Group Underwriting Office is accountable for establishing, enabling, and driving profit and growth through Product Underwriting Strategy, Portfolio Design and Technical Underwriting Excellence in partnership with the AXA Entities, for both Commercial and Retail, through:

• Portfolio Design Steering
• Underwriting Product Strategy and Profitability Measurement
• Technical Underwriting Guidance
• Pricing Models, Platforms and Analytics
• Risk Appetite deployment
• Ceded Reinsurance strategy design and purchasing

Dimensions

The P&C business line is in the core of the organizational structure of the AXA Group and operates in 20+ territories, with a wide mix of operating models, market shares and stages of development. To maintain alignment within the organization, the Group Head of Long tail Underwriting for P&C Commercial lines is responsible for:

• Ensuring a sustainable and profitable growth of AXA P&C commercial lines long tails activities worldwide, promoting technical excellence. This encompasses underwriting, PAP (Product approval Process), PMP (Portfolio Management Process), and requires strong and tight cooperation with claims management, reserving, cat modeling and reinsurance cover.
• Structuring the 1st line of defense organization and missions by developing, facilitating, and monitoring an effective P&C Commercial Lines Underwriting framework for Long Tail lines of business.

The P&C Group Head of Long Tail Commercial Lines is responsible for

• Premises and operations liability
• Products and completed operations liability
• Motor
• Workers’ compensation and employers’ liability
• Management liability
• Professional liability
• Marine liability
• Aircraft liability
• Environmental liability

Group Casualty exposures amount to ~€15,000 Billion and ~€6 Billion GWP.

The P&C Group Head of Long Tail Commercial Lines is responsible for Cyber Insurance line of Business, both for retail and commercial client segments Group Cyber affirmative exposures amount to ~€2,000 billion

Your job and daily missions :

• Define the Group Underwriting guidance for Long tail business and promote technical excellence via information and training to entities/region and professional families.
  • Contribute to the P&C AXA Group Standards and P&C Solvency 2 policies
  • Define the P&C commercial Long Tail Underwriting guidelines
  • Contribute to the Gross Underwriting Limits (GUL) for Group and local entities or regions/markets (setting and usage)
  • Participate in underwriting decisions for cases referred to Group (Group ARCC)
  • Participate in Technical working groups with other Group functions, entities & markets
• Ensure the global supervision of the Long Tail lines and step-up entities’ expertise to contribute to business development though underwriting, supporting Group and entities’ growth ambition while maintaining strong profitability focus.
  • Develop the Group’s technical practices and culture together with GUO other functions, notably Pricing/PMP, Claims & Reinsurance and local Technical professional families
  • Contribute to improving accumulation models accuracy, in notably bridging the technical modelling capabilities, the underwriting expertise and the entities’ exposure footprint across geographies
  • Identify needs, develop, and propose relevant trainings to support attainment of required technical skills
  • Identify best practices and organize sharing/training sessions with the different entities’ business families
• Ensure that the development of products is sustainable and profitable via the Product Approval Process (PAP) and provide support to entities when needed.
  • Develop and propose trainings to upgrade portfolio and products monitoring processes
• Control entities/region through regular technical audits (e.g., In-Depth Reviews, Technical Reviews, Preliminary Reviews).
  • Ensure understanding and alignment of the P&C entities’ governance with the Group Standard, Solvency II policies and Underwriting guidelines
  • Control and measure entities’ underwriting maturity (expertise, discipline, controls)
  • Challenge the Underwriting Strategic thinking to support a sustainable profitable growth within entities
• Participate upon request on Reserves Review Process to feed the Group Reserving team with Long Tail Lines of Business elements of context regarding Cycle, UW historical vision vs UW future developments and portfolio mix evolution that could influence to reserves development but not yet observed in Claims triangles.
• Drive the transformation of systemic risks management by improving the monitoring of the Group's exposures as part of the CLEAR project.
  • Identify key systemic risk factors and propose transformation strategies to ensure robust Underwriting discipline and risk appetite compliance
  • Support entities to identify and set their transformation plans and operational transformation journey
  • Conduct technical capabilities assessment projects with internal and external providers to identify and propose technical tools to support entities in their transformation journey through digitalization and automation of contracts review
• Contribute to Mergers & Acquisitions operations related to P&C Commercial Lines business.

What you’ll need to succeed in this role:

• In-depth comprehensive knowledge and experience of P&C business operations including Underwriting, Pricing, Claims, Reserves and Reinsurance, enabling to have a thorough understanding of business insurance rationale, processes and profitability and any potential P&C risk.
• Advanced knowledge in P&C actuarial and underwriting fields to efficiently challenge the local heads of underwriting and pricing experts.
• Good understanding of processes to efficiently manage the decision to be taken in the different committees or boards.
• Solid interpersonal and organizational skills as it is essential to successfully manage multiple aspects and interactions with numerous internal and external stakeholders.
• Persuasive opinion to challenge and orient the P&C strategy and operations at Group or Entity level.

Technical and professional skills:

• Deep knowledge of various liability insurances, policy wordings, pricing and modeling approach (including accumulation control)
• Strong management skills
• Easy manipulation of complex financial figures connected to insurance activity monitoring
• Reinsurance knowledge (treaties and facultative)
• Recognized Expertise in loss prevention and risk engineering

Soft skills:

• Natural leadership
• Able to develop structured argumentation to sell ideas and convince various types of stakeholders
• Able to deliver high-level presentations in front of senior management or entities CEOs
• Agility to work in a multifaceted P&C world
• Capacity to motivate and lead transversal teams, building collaborative working relationships, effective communicator, flexible