Head of Technical Pricing (National Markets)

Are you a Head of Technical Pricing with a desire to inspire change and dynamic solutions within a growing business? We are looking for an individual to drive the team and bring their knowledge and expertise to the table.

If you’re looking for a place where you can make a meaningful difference, you’ve found it. The work we do at Markel gives people the confidence to move forward and seize opportunities, and you’ll find your fit amongst our global community of optimists and problem-solvers. We’re always pushing each other to go further because we believe that when we realize our potential, we can help others reach theirs. Join us and play your part in something special!

The opportunity:

The team is embedded within the business and works closely on a day-to-day basis with expert underwriters, claims handlers, finance, actuarial, sales, operations, and management. This close interaction is key to delivering detailed solutions quickly, to the people that need them.

You will be working in an R&D oriented team with strong cloud data engineering, data science and PowerBI skills. The team will support you and your team with the creation of robust data pipelines and implementation of pricing tools across NM, ensuring the highest standard in data quality, integrity, and governance. Working together to achieve this will allow you to focus on one of your key tasks – the collection of key pricing data across NM and production of clean, consistent pricing MI via our PowerBI dashboards.

This role will be suited to a creative and flexible problem solver, with an ability to balance priorities, long-term projects and responding to ad-hoc requirements. Leading a team remotely will be a key skill to develop, as well as a desire to get into the detail when required. Data wrangling skills, along with some knowledge of SQL, are desirable for this role.

What you’ll be doing:

• Support pricing model development and portfolio segmentation across National Markets ensuring consistency in model building through conducting model reviews and sharing knowledge and tools. Consistency in data is key. In this role you will provide additional support and get involved in detailed model development and portfolio segmentation work in times of high demand.
• Become the Lead Pricing Expert for National Markets. You will provide technical leadership on pricing approaches in National Markets. This includes adherence to the Markel International pricing policy, as well as maintaining a log of all pricing models, and ensuring that detailed user guides and technical documentation exist for each model. The candidate is also expected to facilitate meetings, create materials and coordinate efforts across the regions for these topics.
• Support large account pricing across National Markets. As a Head of Technical pricing you will create reports that highlight risks falling into these categories, documentation of the pricing process, as well as reviewing the pricing performed by the local pricing actuaries.
• Production of consistent Pricing MI, providing one view across all of National Markets. You will co-ordinate the production of relevant reports, working with a range of individuals both within the Analytics team, as well as local experts in Underwriting and Claims for example. Strong project management skills are required, as input and effort from multiple teams in multiple locations will be needed to achieve this. This includes existing reports on rate change and technical ratio.
• Contribute to the transition to a new pricing platform across when required by the local teams. In order to future proof our pricing capabilities, the Analytics team has explored moving existing pricing tools to an API based framework.
• Ensure the business keeps up with evolving technologies aiding actuarial work, through reading research, attending conferences, and maintaining close links with developers | data engineers | data scientists.
• Lead a team of Pricing Actuaries across NM. This will require comfort with being responsible for a remote team taking into consideration differences in local practices and ways of operating. Regular international travel will also be required.
• Be the main point of contact for other teams across Markel, co-ordinating communication, meetings and responses to queries on NM Technical Pricing. This includes liaising with the central actuarial team in London on pricing and reserving matters, the OCUO team and colleagues across Markel International and Markel Corp.

Our must-haves:

• Experience working as a Qualified Pricing Actuary in Commercial Lines insurance.
• Experience in mentoring junior colleagues, comfortable working remotely with team members located in different countries.
• Effective interpersonal skills to work with both technical and non-technical partners, including an ability to communicate to senior management when required.
• Experience with SQL for data querying and manipulation; expert skills in Excel and VBA are required.
• Experience with other coding languages is an advantage, in particular Python and R.
• An understanding the product delivery cycle and agile methodology is an advantage, as is experience of Azure and Databricks.
• Knowledge of London Market insurance practices, terminology and reporting requirements is an advantage.

Who we are:

Markel Group (NYSE – MKL) a Fortune 500 company with over 60 offices in 20+ countries, is a holding company for insurance, reinsurance, specialist advisory and investment operations around the world.

What’s in it for you?

• A great starting salary plus annual bonus & strong benefits package…
• 25 days paid holiday plus Bank Holidays, with the opportunity to buy / sell extra leave
• Fantastic company pension scheme, private medical and dental cover, life assurance, travel insurance cover, income protection, season ticket loan as well as other great benefits on offer
• There are countless opportunities to learn new skills and develop in your career and we can provide the support needed to do just that!

Are you ready to play your part?

Choose ‘apply’ to fill out our short application, so that we can find out more about you.

Markel celebrates the value of a diverse workforce that brings experience and expertise from a wide variety of backgrounds and life circumstances. Whatever your background, if you feel you meet the requirements of this role then we want to hear from you. We are also happy to consider candidates who are looking for flexible working patterns.

We are an equal-opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided with all reasonable accommodations to be able to participate in the job application or interview process and to perform essential job functions if successful.