Director, Life Underwriting

About Ethos

Ethos (Nasdaq: $LIFE) is a leading life insurance technology company on a mission to protect families by democratizing access to life insurance and empowering agents at scale. With its robust three-sided technology platform, Ethos is transforming the life insurance experience for consumers, agents, and carriers alike. Ethos offers instant, accessible products and a seamless online process that requires no medical exams and just a few health questions; it eliminates traditional barriers, making it easier than ever for everyone to protect their families. Ethos is redefining how life insurance is bought, sold, and underwritten.

About the role

We are looking for a Director, Life Underwriting to lead our underwriting production function, with a strong emphasis on team performance, people development, and operational excellence. This role is accountable for ensuring consistent, high-quality underwriting output while building and developing a high-performing, scalable team that meets production targets, turnaround time (TAT), and service level agreement (SLA) commitments.This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who can balance strategic oversight with day-to-day operational rigor, and who is equally comfortable coaching underwriters as they are managing dashboards and production metrics. You will be a champion of AI-enabled ways of working, continuously looking for ways to remove manual effort, shorten cycle times, and raise the productivity of every team member.

Duties and Responsibilities

• UW Production & Quality:
• Own underwriting production output, ensuring volume and quality targets are met
• Identify and recommend automation opportunities (straight-through processing, AI-assisted case review) to increase throughput without compromising quality
• Partner with Underwriting Auditors to track audit findings and drive corrective action
• Ensure decisions align with guidelines, risk appetite, and regulations
• People Development:
• Lead and grow a team of underwriters and supervisors/managers
• Oversee onboarding/training programs and build career development pathways
• Drive a coaching culture and strong team retention
• Performance Management:
• Establish clear, measurable performance standards for underwriters and supervisors across productivity, set productivity targets, quality standards, TAT, and compliance
• Drive performance against TAT/SLA targets across case types
• Build reporting to track real-time production and SLA performance
• Resolve issues causing breaches; coordinate with Sales/Ops/Claims on escalations
• Conduct regular performance reviews, using audit findings and production data to identify trends and root causes of underperformance
• Lead structured, constructive conversations on performance gaps, including formal Performance Improvement Plans where warranted
• Ensure consistency in performance evaluation standards across teams, especially in distributed/cross-geography setups
• Recognize and reward high performers to reinforce a strong performance culture alongside accountability
• Team & Org Leadership:
• Build and scale teams as business needs grow
• Manage capacity planning against volume forecasts
• Ensure consistency in UW practices across distributed teams
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement, experimentation, and openness to new technology
• Stakeholder management:
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Key UW point of contact for Sales, Operations, Compliance, and Engineering
• Represent UW in cross functional meetings; influence stakeholders on process changes using data

Qualifications and Skills

• 15+ years in Life Insurance Underwriting, with strong people management experience
• Proven track record managing production to standards at scale
• Proven experience managing large teams (80/100+ members).
• Experience building/leading UW teams (direct and/or cross-geography)
• Strong technical UW knowledge, data-driven decision-making, and stakeholder influencing and communication skills
• Bachelor's degree required; UW certifications (LOMA, FALU) are preferred

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Don’t meet every single requirement? If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. At Ethos we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace.

We are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. Pursuant to the SF Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider employment for qualified applicants with arrests and conviction records.

To learn more about what information we collect and how it may be used, please refer to our California Candidate Privacy Notice.

Recruitment Notice: Please be aware of recruitment scams. All legitimate communication from our team will only come from email addresses ending in @ethos.com or @getethos.com.

We will never ask for payment, banking details, or sensitive personal information during the hiring process. If you are contacted by someone claiming to represent us from a different email address, please treat it as fraudulent.