Senior Associate, Underwriting Rules Automation

 

Location Designation: Hybrid - 1 day per quarter 

 

 

 

Role Overview: 

Designs, tests, and governs rules for New York Life’s automated underwriting engine, translating underwriting, medical, and actuarial guidance into executable logic that supports straight-through processing.

 

Requires strong underwriting judgment and comfort with rules platforms, partners across actuarial, data science, technology, medical, and product teams.

 

What You'll Do: 

 

Rules Design & Authoring

• Design and author underwriting rules across key mortality and morbidity risk categories and non-medical factors (build, lifestyle, financial).
• Convert guidelines and underwriting into structured decision logic in the BRMS and underwriting workbench.
• Build decision trees using available data (Rx, EHR, MIB, ICD-10, labs, third-party scores) for consistent, auditable outcomes.
• Define multi-impairment and co-morbidity rules aligned to company and reinsurance standards.
• Define triage and escalation paths (auto-approve, rate, decline, refer, order requirements).

Rules Governance & Quality Assurance

• Maintain documentation (rationale, logic narrative, data dependencies, versions, clinical/actuarial basis).
• Create and execute test cases (standard and edge) and support UAT before deployment.
• Monitor rule performance (STP, QC, mortality/morbidity) to detect gaps and unintended outcomes.
• Manage change lifecycle (intake, impact, review, approval, release, post-deploy validation).
• Ensure rule design meets MRM standards, regulatory requirements, and privacy/fairness guidance.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with actuarial/data science to incorporate model outputs into rule logic (thresholds, overrides).
• Act as underwriting SME for technology delivery (requirements, review, validation).
• Work with medical directors and senior underwriters to apply evidence and reinsurer guidance.
• Identify segments suitable for more automation and support STP improvement priorities.

Continuous Improvement

• Track emerging evidence and benchmarking to recommend rule enhancements.
• Engage in reinsurer/industry forums to stay current on best practices and data sources.
• Develop training and reference materials to support adoption of automated underwriting.

 

 

 

 

What You'll Bring: 

 

• 5+ years individual life underwriting experience with broad medical risk assessment expertise.
• Strong mortality/morbidity knowledge; familiarity with reinsurer manuals (e.g., Munich Re, RGA, Gen Re, SCOR).
• Experience with accelerated/automated underwriting and rules-based decision engines.

• BRMS experience (e.g., Corticon, Blaze, Drools, Pega) building decision tables/trees/flows.

• Analytical: break down complex histories into clear, auditable decision pathways.
• Strong writing skills for requirements, rule specs, and test narratives for technical and business audiences.
• Collaborative, able to work across underwriting, actuarial, data science, technology, compliance, and product.

 

  Preferred Qualifications

• Experience integrating third-party data into rules (Rx, EHR, MIB/MVR, financial data, wearables).
• Exposure to predictive model scores and how to operationalize them in rules.
• Working knowledge of ICD-10 and clinical terminology used in underwriting.
• Underwriting experience in LTC, IDI, or critical illness a plus.
• Familiarity with analytics tools (SQL, Excel, Tableau, Python) for monitoring rule performance.
• Experience in an MRM framework (documentation and validation for automated decisions).

 

What We Offer

• High-impact role accelerating automated underwriting and faster decisions for customers and field.
• Work at the intersection of underwriting, data science, and technology.
• Competitive c