Head of Catastrophe and Emergency Response

Why Join Stand: At Stand, you’ll help build a new class of global property protection. We use advanced physics and AI to model catastrophic risk at the asset level, then automate underwriting and mitigation before loss occurs. Insurance is simply the current delivery mechanism. The real product is a scalable risk engine, our Stand World Model.

We stay when traditional insurers exit. We model what others approximate. And we build systems that change outcomes, not just prices.

Our leadership team has built category-defining companies (Metromile, Policygenius, WePay, HotelTonight) and brings decades of expertise in underwriting, capital management, and reinsurance.

Background: The property insurance industry is built to price loss after it happens. It relies on coarse proxies, backward-looking data, and manual processes, then accepts damage as unavoidable.

Stand takes a different approach. We simulate how real-world catastrophes affect individual properties, translate that into actionable decisions, and automate the business around it. The result is a platform that can underwrite what others can’t and operate with far less friction.

The role

Stand is a homeowners insurance carrier for people who live where wildfire and hurricanes are a fact of life. The promise we make them is unusual: we try to reach you before the loss and get you help, and we handle the claim fast when it comes. This role owns both ends of that promise.

Right now there is no single person who owns catastrophe readiness and response across Stand. Someone has to build the plan before a season, hold our claims partners to a real standard every day, and then run the whole thing when an event is bearing down on our customers. Without that, the promise is a slogan; with it, it's something a homeowner can count on.

Concretely, the job is three things. You build and keep current the catastrophe plan, covering activation levels, who does what, vendor capacity, regulatory reporting, and how we reach customers and brokers. You manage the third-party administrators who handle our claims, day to day and against their service standards. And you own the Emergency Response Program: the work that finds policyholders in the path of an event and gets them help, increasingly automated, with people kept in the loop for the judgment calls.

You report to the Head of Claims and Client Experience and work across the company. You'd partner with Product and Engineering on the automation, with Underwriting and the market teams on where our exposure sits, and with our TPAs and field vendors every week. When an event hits, you lead the response and brief leadership. This is an in-office role in Austin.

What you'll do

• Own the catastrophe plan across every peril and state we write, including activation levels, roles, vendor capacity, regulatory reporting, and customer and broker outreach. Keep it current and tested with a tabletop before each season.

• Run the response when an event hits: call the activation level, lead the daily team call, direct the TPAs and field vendors, brief leadership, and put Stand people on the ground at insurance villages and with our hardest-hit customers.

• Manage our claims TPAs day to day, including staffing, open inventory, escalations, large losses, and payment approvals within your authority. Hold them to their service standards with a regular scorecard, closed-file audits, and remedies when they slip.

• Own the Emergency Response Program end to end: watch active events, decide when a property needs monitoring, outreach, or a vendor deployment, and direct it remotely.

• Work with Product and Engineering to automate exposure analysis, deployment recommendations, and customer and broker outreach, extending the approach from one peril to the next while keeping the judgment calls with people.

• Own the vendor bench across field response, mitigation, housing, contents, engineering, and independent adjusting firms. This includes contracts, standby terms, capacity, and performance, reviewed ahead of each season.

• First 30 days: a read-out on where the current plan, TPA standards, and vendor bench actually stand, with the biggest gaps named.

• First 3 months: a written catastrophe plan signed off by leadership and a tabletop run with each TPA, with gaps logged and closed.

• First year: TPA scorecards running on a regular cadence with remedies applied, a vendor bench with standby terms across every active peril and state, automated exposure analysis and outreach live for the lead peril, and a response you've run cleanly through a live event or exercise.

What we're looking for

• You've led property claims through real catastrophe events, calling the response, directing adjusters, and holding quality steady while everything is moving fast. Hurricane experience is a strong plus.

• You've managed TPAs or independent adjusting firms: set and enforced service standards, watched capacity and pricing, and run scorecards that actually changed behavior.

• You know state catastrophe reporting requirements and claim-handling deadlines well enough to keep a carrier compliant across several states.

• You can run a live response from both the office and the field, and make fast, sound calls when the information in front of you is incomplete.

• You're comfortable building from a blank page in a small, fast-moving company. There's no playbook handed to you, no large team under you yet.

Nice to have

• Wildfire experience.

• You've scoped automation with product and engineering teams and held them to a timeline.

• Underwriting, inspection, or mitigation experience alongside claims.

• Florida or high-net-worth property experience.

• You've built or run an emergency response program before.

You're probably not a fit if

• You want a mature playbook and a built-out team to step into. Most of this you'll build yourself.

• You'd rather stay at the desk; this role goes to the ground when an event hits.

• You're looking for predictable hours. Catastrophe season has no rhyme or reason.

Benefits:

• Above-market Health, Dental, and Vision coverage

• Weekly lunch stipend

• Flexible time off + holidays

• 401(k) plan

• Commuter benefits

• PAT & MAT Leave

• Short-Term and Long-Term Disability

• Monthly team gatherings

• In-office perks

AI in the Interview Process

Thoughtful use of AI tools is expected and valued at Stand. Candidates should be prepared to discuss how they use AI, how they evaluate its output, and how it informs their work. Strong communication, sound judgment, and the ability to clearly articulate experience and decision-making remain core requirements.

Some parts of the interview process are designed to assess independent thinking, communication, and problem-solving. If you plan to use an AI assistant or LLM during any portion of an interview, please discuss it with your interviewer in advance.

Work Authorization

Candidates must be authorized to work in the U.S. Stand does not sponsor new work visas. We can consider candidates on TN visas, O-1A visas, or H-1B transfers with three years or more remaining.

Equal Opportunity Employment

Stand is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status. We believe that diversity enriches the workplace, and we are committed to growing our team with the most talented and passionate people from every community.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals. If you require assistance, please contact us at [email protected].

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

AI Use in Hiring

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us at [email protected].