[Hiring] Personal Lines Underwriting Director @The Hanover Insurance Group

Role Description

The Director, PL Underwriting Strategy – Guidelines & Models is a strategic leader responsible for the design, governance, and strategic evolution of underwriting guidelines, rules, decision logic, and rating/underwriting models across Personal Lines. This role translates the company’s risk appetite and growth objectives into clear, executable underwriting strategies that are embedded in systems, tools, and frontline decision-making.

This leader partners closely with Analytics, Product, IT, and Underwriting Operations to ensure underwriting intent is precisely articulated, analytically supported, and consistently deployed at scale. The role manages a team of strategy professionals and plays a critical role in modernizing underwriting through data, automation, and advanced analytics.

In this role you will:

• Own the end-to-end underwriting guidelines strategy for Personal Lines, ensuring clarity, consistency, and alignment with enterprise risk appetite and portfolio objectives.
• Lead the development, governance, and evolution of underwriting rules, decision trees, and eligibility frameworks across channels and products.
• Define the strategic roadmap for underwriting models, including risk segmentation, pricing support, and decision automation in partnership with Analytics and Actuarial.
• Translate complex analytic outputs into actionable underwriting guidance suitable for both automated and human decisioning.
• Establish and maintain strong governance frameworks to ensure guideline changes, model updates, and rule deployments are controlled, documented, and auditable.
• Drive underwriting modernization initiatives, including increased automation, straight-through processing, and model-driven decisioning.
• Partner with IT and Delivery teams to ensure underwriting strategies are accurately implemented in systems and monitored post-deployment.
• Develop robust monitoring and feedback loops to assess guideline and model performance, identify issues, and recommend enhancements.
• Produce executive-ready materials explaining underwriting logic, tradeoffs, and impacts in a clear and compelling manner.
• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of strategy professionals; set expectations, provide coaching, and manage performance.
• Represent underwriting strategy in senior leadership forums and cross-functional design decisions.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of relevant work experience.
• 3+ years of proven experience leading cross-functional teams.

Requirements

• Underwriting & Decision Science Expertise – Deep understanding of underwriting guidelines, decision frameworks, and the practical application of predictive models.
• Strategic Translation – Ability to convert abstract risk appetite and analytic insight into executable underwriting rules and guidance.
• Analytical Fluency – Comfort partnering with data science, actuarial, and analytics teams; able to challenge and interpret model outputs.
• Operational Mindset – Understands system constraints, frontline usability, and the realities of deploying strategy at scale.
• Change Leadership – Proven ability to lead teams through significant change in tools, processes, and ways of working.
• People Leadership – Demonstrated success as a people manager, including talent development and performance management.
• Executive Communication – Ability to explain complex underwriting and modeling concepts succinctly to senior leaders.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance.
• 401K with a company match.
• Tuition reimbursement.
• PTO.
• Company paid holidays.
• Flexible work arrangements.
• Cultural Awareness Day in support of IDE.
• On-site medical/wellness center (Worcester only).