Underwriters on What They Do Every Day

What exactly do head underwriters do on their job all day. Find out from three old-time pros.

By Jack Roberts

Editor's note: In April, Steve Pozzi, senior vice president and chief underwriting officer, Chubb Commercial Insurance; Donald J. Pickens, executive vice president and chief underwriting officer national markets, Liberty Mutual Group; and John R. Glancy, chief underwriting officer, XL Insurance, sat with Risk & Insurance® Editor in Chief Jack Roberts to discuss the state of underwriting today. An edited version of those comments is reprinted here.

Editor: Please talk about what you do? What are your responsibilities on a day-to-day basis?

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Steve Pozzi: You balance those roles. You're a strategist sometimes, because you are trying to look at the broad picture, taking some guesses at what are the emerging hazards, what are our new products are going to be, what area are we going to go in. You're a tactician, because you still have to implement the plan.

So how do you make sure, without micromanaging, that you're talking to folks about: Are we on budget? Or if we're not on budget, why and is that good or bad? Do I want to move more people to Denver or Singapore, because I've got some opportunities there? Or do I want less people in Boston and Dallas, because those markets aren't where we want to be? The fun part of the job is you get to be all of those things at different times and some days you're playing 95 percent strategies, and other days you're 95 percent tactician.

Don Pickens: I'm sitting over a large portfolio and trying to manage the exposure of it, and the diversification of it and the product development of it and the tools necessary to manage it. That's pretty influential.

JACK ROBERTS is editor in chief of Risk & Insurance®.

July 1, 2008

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