Vice President, Specialty & Complex Claims

The Vice President of Specialty and Complex Claims provides leadership, technical direction, and strategic oversight for USIG’s Specialty and Complex Claims Team, which is primarily responsible for claims reported under USIG’s self-defense liability insurance program. This role is accountable for managing frequent and often high-severity specialty liability claims involving complex legal exposures and coverage interpretation.

The VP of Specialty and Complex Claims serves as a key strategic partner to underwriting, actuarial, legal, compliance, and senior leadership, ensuring claim outcomes align with policy intent, financial objectives, risk appetite, and service expectations. The role combines sophisticated legal and coverage expertise with operational leadership, reserving discipline, litigation management, and enterprise risk management.

Candidates with prior legal practice experience in insurance defense, liability litigation, or complex coverage advisory environments are strongly preferred. Some prior criminal defense practice experience would be beneficial but is not required.

Key Responsibilities:
Executive Claims Leadership & Strategic Impact:

• Lead the Specialty and Complex Claims unit with accountability for claim outcomes, litigation exposure, reserving adequacy, and operational performance.
• Serve as a senior advisor to executive leadership on complex liability trends, emerging risks, and claim portfolio performance.
• Partner with underwriting, actuarial, finance, compliance, and legal leadership to help ensure cross-functional alignment.
• Provide leadership on specialty liability exposures, particularly those involving self-defense, firearms liability, and other similar complex risk environments.

Legal, Coverage & Litigation Strategy:

• Oversee coverage analysis, claim investigation, reserving strategy, and resolution of complex litigated and non-litigated claims.
• Provide guidance on coverage interpretation and positions, reservations of rights, settlement authority, as well as litigation and trial strategy. Oversee engagement and performance of external defense counsel, including claim and litigation strategy, case evaluation, and expense management.
• Ensure the utilization of good faith claims handling practices aligned with regulatory expectations and fair claims practices standards through disciplined claims management and consistent decision-making.

Operational & Financial Claims Excellence:

• Establish operational standards, performance metrics, and reporting frameworks for specialty and complex claims.
• Monitor loss development, severity trends, litigation expense, and reserve adequacy.
• Drive operational efficiency while maintaining technical rigor, claim quality, and regulatory compliance.
• Identify opportunities for process optimization, vendor management improvements, and enhanced claims analytics.
• Maintain strong focus on both financial stewardship and insured experience outcomes.

Organizational Leadership & Talent Development:

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing claims team with strong technical, insurance, and legal expertise.
• Foster a culture of accountability, analytical discipline, collaboration, and professional growth.
• Support succession planning, leadership development, and technical training initiatives across the claims function.

Compliance, Governance & Industry Leadership:

• Ensure compliance with applicable statutes, regulations, and internal claims governance standards.
• Oversee internal audits, regulatory inquiries, and quality assurance programs.
• Remain current on evolving legal precedent, insurance regulation, and specialty liability trends impacting the self-defense liability program and broader insurance market.
• Contribute to enterprise risk management initiatives and organizational governance discussions.

Qualifications & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree required; Juris Doctor strongly preferred.
• Significant experience practicing law in insurance defense, liability litigation, or complex coverage advisory roles highly desirable.
• Ten or more years of related, relevant experience, including management responsibility for complex, litigated, or high-exposure claims or cases.
• Demonstrated expertise in coverage interpretation, litigation management, reserving strategy, and high-severity claim resolution.
• Strong understanding of claims standards and good faith claims handling practices.
• General but strong understanding of criminal law, particularly the use of self-defense and application of self-defense law.
• Proven ability to manage a team of front-line claims specialists and work in tandem with cross-functional stakeholders.
• Exceptional analytical judgment, negotiation capability, and strategic decision-making skills.

USIG targets property and casualty insurance for small and medium businesses that are managed in such a way that they deserve to qualify for, and enjoy, the additional advantages in security and coverage offered by an admitted product. We also offer an E&S product for those accounts that may qualify for our admitted market product after a few years of successful operation. We work exclusively with our appointed wholesale General Agents that demonstrate a commitment to professional underwriting practices and have multi-decade relationships with our underwriting teams. USIG incorporates a state-of-the-art risk acceptance process, employing expert underwriting rules, advanced analytics, machine learning, and external data sources to supplement standard risk information. USIG and its insurance entities (Universal Fire & Casualty Insurance Company “UFCIC” and Shield Indemnity Incorporated “Shield”) maintain an AM Best Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings (Long-Term ICR) of “a-“. UFCIC also maintains a Demotech Financial Stability rating of A (Exceptional) and is Treasury Listed for surety bonds up to $5.9M. USIG also underwrites the Surety line of business through our admitted company, providing bonds for the Commercial, Contract and Specialty Surety markets. Through our proprietary, cutting-edge portal Bondramp.com, we provide agents at all levels access to a large library of competitively priced commercial and transactional bonds, immediately delivering many bonds upon the Principal’s payment. Conveniently, BondRamp.com and is available 24x7x365 and accessible by computer, tablet, or mobile device. We have corporate offices in Waterford and Grandville, Michigan as well as Dublin, Ohio.