This is a hands-on role at the heart of our UK car insurance business. You’ll be responsible for how our motor portfolio performs and grows.
Our insurer panel owns the pricing models and sets the wholesale rates, so this job is about getting the most out of the panel and the proposition around it. You’ll be leading on how we expand the panel of insurers we work with, shaping the roadmap for where we invest in data and add-ons, and pushing our insurer partners for more competitive rates, so that more customers get a quote they actually want to buy.
We’ve grown quickly and have big plans, so we’re looking for someone who has done motor underwriting or portfolio management before and knows what makes a book competitive. Just as importantly, you’ll have the confidence to sit across the table from insurers and get more out of them.
You’ll report to the UK Country Manager and work closely with our Commercial, Product and Data teams.
What you’ll do
In short, you’ll own how our motor portfolio performs today and where it goes next. Day to day, that looks like:
- Keeping a close eye on quotability, competitiveness and conversion, spotting where we’re losing out and having a clear plan to put it right.
- Growing the panel. You’ll find the gaps in our underwriting footprint, onboard new insurers to close these gaps and manage those relationships.
- Getting more from the insurers we already work with, through regular trading sessions where you challenge them on appetite and rates and hold them to their numbers.
- Deciding what goes on our data and enrichment roadmap, and in what order, based on what will genuinely make us more competitive.
- Owning our add-ons: which ones we launch, and how we make them work harder for customers and for us.
- Helping shape and launch new propositions as we grow, such as telematics and multi-car.
- Keeping track of the numbers that matter, from quotability and panel depth through to conversion, margin and loss ratio, and using them to make decisions.
- Working alongside our Commercial, Data, Product and Engineering teams to get changes live quickly and safely.
- Staying the right side of our regulatory obligations, including the FCA’s rules on fair value, so that the commercial calls we make are always good ones for customers too.
Key skills & competencies
Essential skills and experience
- Around five years or more in UK personal-lines motor, in portfolio management or underwriting. That could have been at an insurer or an MGA.
- A good feel for what makes a motor book competitive and what drives conversion, and how the panel, appetite and wholesale rates all feed into that. You won’t be pricing risks yourself, so this is about commercial understanding rather than technical pricing skills.
- The credibility and confidence to push insurer partners for better appetite and rates, and to bring new underwriters onto the panel.
- Experience shaping a roadmap across data, product or proposition. Data enrichment, add-ons and new features are all good examples.
- A track record you can point to of improving how a portfolio performs, be that quotability, competitiveness, conversion, footprint or the loss ratio.
- Commercially sharp, and comfortable using data to back up your thinking.
- Happy owning a plan and getting it delivered in a business that’s still moving fast and working things out.
- You’ve grown or managed an insurer panel before, and have onboarded underwriters or brought in extra capacity.
- You’ve launched or improved add-ons, or features like PNCD, telematics, multi-car or premium finance.
- You know your way around enrichment data and how it lifts quotability and competitiveness (LexisNexis, for instance).
- You’ve worked with price comparison sites, or in embedded or white-label distribution.
- You’ve put AI or newer technology to use in an insurance setting.
- You have a working knowledge of the FCA’s general insurance pricing and fair value rules.
Behavioural competencies
- You like getting into the detail and building things, not just overseeing them.
- You get on and make things happen, and you care about the impact you have.
- You let evidence and data guide your decisions.
- You enjoy a young, fast-moving team and add energy to it.
- You’re comfortable when things are still a bit ambiguous, and you bring order where there isn’t much yet.
- You communicate well, and you can bring partners and colleagues with you.
This role is great for:
Someone who knows motor underwriting or portfolio management well and wants to run a whole portfolio.
It’ll suit you if you:
- Have real depth in motor and want to put it to work directly.
- Would rather build and grow a proposition than keep one ticking over.
- Want the freedom to set the plan and see your work go live quickly.
- Care as much about doing right by customers as you do about the commercials.
- Want to be part of a data- and AI-led insurance business as it scales.
Role location
This role is based at our London hub, and we work in a hybrid way. We’d like you in the office around three days a week, so you can work closely with the commercial, product and data teams.
Why Open?
It’s an exciting time to join Open. We provide our team with:
- Highly competitive compensation, including share options – we believe in paying people what they’re worth and having everyone in our company share in our success
- High levels of autonomy and trust so you can do your best work
- Growth opportunities internally – as you grow, your role can too.
- Flexible working – we are about impact, not time at your desk.
- We encourage freedom and responsibility, including the ability to work from anywhere.
- Paid company parental leave, supporting all parents as they balance career and family.
- Personal development allowance – flexible annual benefit to support learning, wellbeing and personal growth.
About us
Open is a global tech company on a mission to make it easy for everyone to get the most from their insurance. We launched in Australia in 2016, opened our London office in 2022 and our Manchester office this year, rebuilding one of the world’s least digitally mature industries from the ground up.
We do this through three products that work together to put customers first, from start to finish. Open Embedded lets businesses offer insurance directly inside their own apps and websites – so customers can get covered without leaving the experience they’re already in. Open Agentic uses AI safely and responsibly to guide customers through buying a policy, answering questions in plain English so they understand exactly what they’re getting. Open Intel spots the moments when someone is most likely to need cover – like buying a car or moving house – and helps us reach them at the right time, in a helpful way.
We’re a Certified B Corporation with a global team across the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
Diverse perspectives and lived experiences make us better at what we do. If your CV doesn’t tick every box, apply anyway. Let us know if you need any adjustments through the process and we’ll make it work.
Open is for builders – people who are intellectually curious, courageous and reject the idea that “it can’t be done”. If that sounds like you, apply and let’s build the future of insurance together.
