Life Senior Underwriting Developer

 

Working hours: This role is available on a part-time, job-share or full-time basis.

Location: Flexible – ideally within a commutable distance of Swindon as you will be working from our Swindon office approx. once per month

Closing date for applications: 3rd February 2026

 

 

The opportunity: 

 

We have a new opportunity as part of ongoing growth within Zurich. You’ll join us as an experienced Life and Disability Underwriter and contribute to driving forward improvements to the technical standards, controls, practices and customer outcomes of our life underwriting philosophy.

 

You will be primarily focused on the monitoring, analysis and development of our underwriting decisions and quality, including identifying trends to help us improve outcomes for our customers and business. You will also use your underwriting expertise to support improvements to our claims experience in providing retrospective underwriting decisions. The team is also responsible for ensuring Zurich’s underwriting philosophy remains robust and accurate.  

   

Part of the role is performing quality sampling on our operational underwriters and always ensuring that the agreed philosophy is being used. Using your technical mind, you will work alongside the team to review and develop Zurich quality and governance frameworks to ensure that we continue to always deliver the best outcomes.  

   

Many of our employees work flexibly in a variety of different ways, including part-time, flexible hours, job share, an element of working from home or compressed hours. This is because we want the best people for our roles, and we recognise that sometimes those people aren’t available full-time. Please talk to us at interview about the flexibility you may need.

 

What will you be doing? 

 

• Quality Assurance: Perform monthly reviews of manual underwriting decisions and POS rules, ensuring assessments are completed within agreed timelines. 

• Claims Review: Evaluate claims cases to retrospectively confirm underwriting decisions, supporting accurate outcomes. 

• Data Analysis & Continuous Improvement: Analyse quality sampling and retrospective decisions to identify trends and recommend updates to underwriting philosophy and processes, aiming to reduce costs and improve results. 

• Proactive Optimisation: Use initiative to spot and develop opportunities for improving underwriting philosophy, streamlining processes, and supporting business-driven projects. 

• Expert Delivery: Apply specialist Life and Disability underwriting expertise to deliver business solutions and drive initiatives forward. 

• Technical Support & Guidance: Offer technical underwriting advice and support to operational underwriters, distribution teams, and other stakeholders as needed. 

• Training & Development: Design and deliver training sessions on a range of underwriting topics to upskill teams and share best practice. 

• External Relationship Management: Help manage relationships with key external partners to ensure technical standards and service levels are maintained, and changes are implemented smoothly. 

• Compliance & Risk Management: Ensure all business practices meet regulatory requirements, risk policies, acceptance criteria, and local legislation (including medical confidentiality and ethical use of genetic testing). 

 

 

What are we looking for?

 

• Experience of underwriting quality sampling is preferred 

• Underwriting Authority: Possess a high level of decision-making authority across all product lines, including Life, Critical Illness, and Income Protection. 

• Quality Focus: Consistently maintain high standards in underwriting quality. 

• Qualifications: A CII Diploma in Underwriting is preferred but not necessary 

• Technical Skills: Confidently use MS Excel, including PivotTables. Experience with Power