Founding Underwriter

About Hedge

Hedge is building an AI native insurance company.

We are starting with a wholesale brokerage and MGU for specialty commercial risk. Insurance is a massive market that still runs on inboxes, PDFs, spreadsheets, portals, and phone calls. We think the next great insurance company will look very different.

Hedge is built by a small team with deep insurance and company-building experience. We are early, well-backed, and moving quickly. Every person who joins now will help shape the company, the product, and the underwriting culture from the ground up.

The Role

As our founding underwriter, you will help build the core underwriting function at Hedge.

You will decide what we write, how we price it, how brokers work with us, and what systems we build around the underwriting workflow. You will work directly with the founders on appetite, guidelines, broker relationships, capacity, claims, compliance, and product.

This is a role for someone who wants ownership, speed, and meaningful upside. Not a role for someone looking to inherit a finished playbook.

What You’ll Do

• Build the underwriting playbook for our first programs
• Review submissions, price risk, quote accounts, and manage the book
• Define appetite, guidelines, exclusions, referrals, and authority
• Work directly with wholesale brokers and distribution partners
• Partner with capacity providers, actuaries, claims, legal, and compliance
• Help turn underwriting judgment into workflows, rules, and software
• Shape the broker experience from day one

What We Value

Ownership: You take responsibility for outcomes, not just tasks.

Judgment: You know how to balance growth, risk selection, pricing, and portfolio quality.

Pace: You are comfortable moving quickly without a big-company process around every decision.

Clarity: You communicate plainly with brokers, partners, regulators, and the team.

What You Bring

• 5+ years of commercial P&C underwriting experience
• Experience in specialty, E&S, wholesale, program, MGU, or captive markets
• Strong broker-facing instincts
• Clear judgment on risk, pricing, terms, and coverage
• Comfort building from zero
• Interest in using software, data, and automation to make underwriting faster and better

Nice to Have

• Experience launching a program, MGU, product, or underwriting unit
• Existing wholesale broker relationships
• Familiarity with delegated authority, fronting carriers, reinsurance, or program management
• Experience in casualty, GL, E&O, cyber, professional liability, or other specialty lines

What We Offer

• In office in San Francisco
• Six days a week with a small, high-urgency team
• Salary, benefits, and significant equity
• Direct influence over the underwriting strategy, product, and company direction
• A chance to build one of the defining insurance companies of the next decade

Our process is fast and practical.

1. Intro call with the founders

A short conversation on your background, what you have underwritten, and what you want to build next.

2. Underwriting deep dive

We will talk through your experience with risk selection, pricing, broker relationships, capacity, and building underwriting guidelines.

3. Working session

We will review a few sample submissions or scenarios together. This is not a take-home project. We want to understand how you think, ask questions, and make underwriting decisions.

4. Final founder conversation

We will discuss role scope, compensation, equity, working style, and what the first 90 days would look like.

We are a small team and move quickly. Our goal is to get from first conversation to offer in about 5 days when there is strong mutual fit.