Director, Commercial Lines Underwriting

Are you looking to make an impactful difference in your work, yourself, and your community? Why settle for just a job when you can land a career? At ICW Group, we are hiring team members who are ready to use their skills, curiosity, and drive to be part of our  journey as we strive to transform the insurance  carrier space. We're proud to be in business for over 50 years, and its change agents like yourself that will help us continue to deliver our mission to create the best insurance experience possible.

Headquartered in San Diego with regional offices located throughout the United States, ICW Group has been named for ten consecutive years as a Top 50 performing P&C organization offering the stability of a large, profitable and growing company combined with a focus on all things people. It's our team members who make us an employer of choice and the vibrant company we are today. We strive to make both our  internal and external communities better everyday! Learn more about why you want to be here!

PURPOSE OF THE JOB

The Director Commercial Lines Underwriting is responsible for leading the underwriting vision, standards, and operating philosophy for ICW Group’s technical home office underwriting function across Commercial Lines. This role provides centralized underwriting governance, technical authority, and risk oversight to promote consistency, quality, and compliance, while operating independently of product development, underwriting system builds, and frontline underwriting execution owned by the Director of Commercial Package. Reporting to the AVP of Commercial Package, the Director leads and develops a high-performing technical underwriting team and partners with cross-functional leaders to ensure underwriting practices align with ICW Group’s risk appetite, regulatory requirements, and strategic growth objectives.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Establishes Vision and Strategy for the Technical Home Office Team

• Develops and communicates a clear enterprise underwriting vision and strategic direction for the technical home office function, focused on underwriting governance, consistency, and risk discipline across Commercial Lines, and aligned with ICW Group’s overall commercial objectives.

• Establishes operating plans, goals, and resource requirements to support underwriting quality, risk selection, and regulatory compliance, while enabling product and frontline underwriting teams to execute within defined underwriting standards and escalation frameworks.

Leads and Develops a High-Performing Team

• Recruits, develops, and leads a team of technical home office underwriting professionals, fostering a culture of underwriting excellence, accountability, and continuous improvement in support of ICW Group’s risk management and governance objectives.

• Establishes clear performance expectations, provides ongoing coaching and development, and ensures the team is equipped to deliver complex risk analysis, technical guidance, and enterprise-level underwriting support in accordance with established standards and escalation protocols.

Directs Technical Referrals & Complex Risk Analysis

• Serves as technical resource for complex or non-standard risks that fall outside established underwriting authority, including large or atypical accounts, emerging risk exposures, and cross-line considerations, providing guidance consistent with ICW Group’s underwriting philosophy and risk appetite.

• Ensures consistent interpretation and application of underwriting standards and guidelines by establishing clear escalation criteria and decision frameworks for challenging or non-routine risks.

• Oversees triage and referral forums with underwriting leadership to review complex risks, promote consistency, and identify systemic underwriting considerations, without assuming ownership of product-specific underwriting execution.

Drives Appetite and Rules Refinement

• Partners with Actuarial, Product, and business leaders to inform and refine enterprise risk appetite parameters and underwriting guidelines, ensuring consistency and alignment across Commercial Lines while respecting product-specific ownership and execution.

• Oversees the governance, maintenance, and enterprise consistency of Business Underwriting Guidelines (BUGs) across Commercial Lines, ensuring guidelines support sound risk selection, regulatory compliance, and underwriting quality.

Promotes Underwriting Excellence & Quality Assurance

• Champions the development and adoption of enterprise underwriting best practices, procedural