Insurance Underwriter CV Examples & Writing Guide

A fictional underwriter with a normal progression: underwriting assistant, then personal lines, then commercial lines with underwriting authority. Every job names the book, the volume and how it performed.

Underwriting hiring is about judgement and profitability, and both can be evidenced on paper. Four things get read first.

• Lines of business and account size. Personal lines, SME commercial, mid-market, large corporate, London Market specialty. Insurers hire for the segment they need, and these are not interchangeable.
• Authority level. Your underwriting authority in pounds and what has to be referred. This tells a manager exactly how much independent judgement you have exercised and is the single most useful number on the page.
• Book performance. Premium volume, loss ratio, retention, hit ratio, submission volume, average account size. Underwriting is one of the few jobs where profitability is directly measurable, so leaving these off is a wasted page.
• Systems and appetite knowledge. Guidewire, Duck Creek, Acturis, Open GI, plus the classes of business you know. Insurers converting systems care; so do insurers writing niche classes.

“The first thing I look for is authority and loss ratio. Tell me the size of your book, what you could bind without a referral, and how the book performed. A CV that only lists duties leaves me guessing whether you are a risk selector or a rate quoter.”

Three or four lines: segment, lines, premium, authority, one performance number, qualification. Skip a career objective unless you are entry level.

The failure pattern is describing the underwriting process, which every underwriter follows. Say what you decided and what the book did.

Group by underwriting judgement, technical knowledge and systems. Avoid generic office skills; every applicant claims attention to detail.

• Risk selection: exposure analysis, claims experience and reserve review, financial statement review, survey and risk management report interpretation, class appetite matching, declinature discipline.
• Pricing: rating guides and technical pricing, experience rating, excess and limit structuring, pricing adequacy analysis, rate change tracking at renewal.
• Coverage knowledge: policy wordings and endorsements, bespoke wordings, indemnity to principals and contractual risk transfer, employers' liability, excess layers.
• Portfolio work: renewal strategy, book segmentation, retention and hit ratio management, aggregation and catastrophe exposure, reinsurance treaty and facultative placement.
• Relationships: broker management, broker visits, negotiating terms without breaking guidelines, explaining a declinature so the broker brings the next submission anyway.
• Systems: Guidewire PolicyCenter, Duck Creek, Acturis or Open GI, catastrophe modelling output from RMS or Verisk, plus Excel modelling for book analysis.

Insurance runs on professional qualifications. They are not legally required to underwrite, but they are named in a large share of adverts and they move salary bands. List the awarding body and the year.

ACII is the best-known UK insurance qualification and takes several years; listing units completed while you work towards it is normal and viewed positively. The Cert CII and Dip CII are shorter and useful earlier, and ACII with relevant experience and ongoing CPD can lead to Chartered Insurer status, so check the CII's current criteria. Underwriters do not hold personal licences in the UK: the insurer or managing agent is authorised by the PRA and FCA, and you work under its permissions and your own written authority. Lloyd's and London Market roles may ask for market-specific training, so check the advert rather than assuming.

Most underwriters start as underwriting assistants, in claims, or on an insurer's graduate scheme. The CV has to show numeracy, judgement and comfort with rules.

1. 1If you are an underwriting assistant, write your work as underwriting work: submissions prepared, accuracy rate, referrals handled, systems used, and any authority you exercised even informally.
2. 2Coming from claims, lead with loss analysis: claims handled, coverage determinations, reserve setting. Claims experience is a genuine advantage in underwriting and most applicants undersell it.
3. 3Coming from a broker, lead with the classes of business you quoted, insurers you placed with and your quote-to-bind numbers.
4. 4New graduates should lead with their degree, any internship or insurance work experience, and quantitative modules. Insurers run structured graduate schemes and recruit directly from universities.
5. 5Start a qualification before you apply. Even 'Cert CII complete, Dip CII in progress' separates you from most applicants for an assistant role.
6. 6Add any analysis you have done in Excel: pivot tables, loss modelling, book analysis. Underwriting is spreadsheet work as much as judgement.

• One page under about eight years, two pages after. Reverse chronological, plain headings. No photo and no date of birth on a UK CV.
• State your lines of business, premium volume and underwriting authority in the personal statement. Those three sentences do most of the screening work.
• Insurer applicant tracking systems match plain phrases: 'commercial lines', 'underwriting authority', 'delegated authority', 'loss ratio', 'hit ratio', 'renewal retention', 'Guidewire', 'Dip CII', 'ACII'. Use the true ones.
• Put qualifications after your name only if you hold the full qualification, and never abbreviate one you are still studying for.
• Name the segment in the employer line: '(regional insurer, mid-market commercial)' or '(Lloyd's managing agent, specialty property)'. Segment fit decides a large share of interviews.
• Check the arithmetic: nine years in the summary means nine years of dates below, and premium and account counts should be consistent between bullets.