Director of Portfolio Underwriting & Operations

Overview

Founded in 1898, Mutual of Enumclaw is a people-first insurer rooted in community, recognized as Washington’s Best Company to Work For for the 14th consecutive year, and proudly serving individuals, families, farms, and businesses through local independent agents across the West.

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The Director of Portfolio Underwriting & Operations reports to the AVP, Underwriting Risk & Operations, and leads Underwriting Operations and Portfolio Underwriting & Solutions for Personal, Commercial, and Farm lines. This leader ensures we write the right collection of risks, process policies accurately and on time, and use processes, vendors, and technology to free underwriters for risk decisions. Partnering with Field/Production Underwriting, Product Management, Claims, IT, and vendors, the Director is accountable for reaching industry-benchmark staffing efficiency while protecting service and profitability.

Location: The successful candidate will work on-site at our Home Offices in the Greater Seattle area. Candidates must live within driving distance of our Home Offices.

Hiring Range: $172,100 - $200,800*

Salary Range: $172,100 - $222,700

*The Hiring Range represents Mutual of Enumclaw’s current hiring pay scale for this role. Mutual of Enumclaw reserves the right to modify or update this range any time. Exact compensation may vary based on skills and experience. Compensation is only one part of our entire total rewards package. To see some of the benefits and perks we offer, please click here.

Responsibilities

Supervisory Responsibilities:

• Lead an organization of approximately 23 through two direct-report managers: the Operations Manager (Personal, Commercial, and Farm Operations) and the Portfolio Underwriting & Solutions Manager. Manage, mentor, coach, and guide assigned staff and perform effective succession planning.
• Set clear goals, accountability structures, and performance expectations for each team; build leadership bench strength.
• Foster a culture of data-driven decision-making, continuous improvement, and accountability.
• Manage external vendor relationships for underwriting data, tools, inspections, and service providers.

Responsibilities:

Portfolio Underwriting & Quality

• Own the portfolio underwriting function: monitor loss performance, appetite, segmentation, growth, retention, rate adequacy, and mix by line, segment, territory, and agency.
• Lead a disciplined review, investigate, recommend, partner, and measure cycle. Bring guideline and authority recommendations to the Field/Production Underwriting Director and line managers, and measure results after changes are made.
• Oversee the underwriting quality program, including file reviews, guideline adherence, and exception analysis. Route findings to UW Training for targeted training.
• Oversee premium audit, including audit ordering, exposure verification, and class validation. Use audit results to identify exposure, class, and agency patterns.
• Direct the inspection strategy as an expense and insurance-to-value lever, in partnership with Loss Control / Risk Services and Product Management.

Underwriting Operations

• Lead one Operations team across Personal, Commercial, and Farm through the Operations Manager. Own service levels, accuracy, timeliness, workflow, and the ability to flex capacity across lines during volume or project spikes.
• Set high standards for associate/operations-level work, maintain a dotted line to underwriting, and build a career path into underwriting.
• Own the operations KPI framework, including SLA attainment, throughput, first-pass quality, cycle time, touch ratios, and straight-through processing.
• Lead workforce and capacity planning through time studies, touch-ratio studies, process mapping, and productivity models measured against industry staffing benchmarks.

Underwriting Solutions & Technology

• Own the underwriting solutions roadmap, including AI-enabled new business underwriting, renewal and endorsement efficiency, agent self-service, account dashboards, and workflow automation. Prioritize enhancements using performance data and underwriter pain points.
• Serve as business lead for underwriting technology initiatives in partnership with IT. Create charters and CBAs for underwriting projects. Ensure clear business cases, requirements, testing, measurable ROI, and defined success metrics.
• Own benefit realization: track the capacity each initiative releases and translate it into staffing plans through attrition and no-backfill decisions.
• Lead vendor evaluation, selection, contracting, and performance management, ensuring solutions deliver measurable value.
• Champion change management and adoption of new tools and processes across underwriting and operations.
• Deliver concise, bottom-line-first reporting on portfolio performance, operational KPIs, benchmark status, and initiative results to executive audiences.

Qualifications

Required Skills and Abilities:  

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to distill complex data into concise, actionable executive updates.
• Strong leadership skills, including leading through other managers and leading teams through organizational change.
• Deep understanding of P&C underwriting principles, portfolio management, premium audit, and profitability drivers (loss ratio, rate adequacy, retention, and mix).
• Strong analytical skills; comfortable with data, business intelligence tools, staffing and productivity models, and predictive model outputs.
• Demonstrated leadership of cross-functional, technology-enabled initiatives, process mapping, and workflow redesign.
• Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Proven ability to operate at both strategic and operational levels, with on-time delivery of strategic initiatives.

Education and Experience: 

• 10+ years of progressive P&C insurance experience, including significant experience in underwriting, portfolio management, or underwriting operations. Commercial or Farm experience preferred; Personal Lines familiarity a plus.
• 5+ years' experience managing teams; experience leading managers preferred.
• Experience with portfolio analytics, quality review programs, or premium audit.
• Experience leading workflow automation or technology implementations (AI-enabled or workflow platforms a plus).
• Bachelor's degree (or equivalent experience). Advanced degree preferred.
• CPCU, CIC, AU, or other insurance industry designation(s)/certification(s) preferred.
• Project management, process improvement, or change management certification a plus.

Physical Requirements:

• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer, including video conferencing.