Chief Compliance Officer

The Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) is responsible for developing, implementing, and overseeing the company’s enterprise-wide compliance program to ensure adherence to all applicable federal and state laws, insurance regulations, commercial casualty statutes and requirements, privacy obligations, and internal policies. This executive leader serves as a strategic advisor to senior leadership and the Board of Directors on regulatory risk, ethics, and corporate governance.
The CCO promotes a culture of integrity, accountability, and operational excellence while proactively identifying, assessing, and mitigating compliance risks associated with underwriting, policy administration, claims handling, premium billing, producer oversight, reinsurance, regulatory reporting, and delegated functions.
Key Responsibilities
Compliance Program Leadership

• Develop, maintain, and enhance the corporate compliance program, policies, and procedures in alignment with legal and regulatory requirements.
• Establish annual compliance work plans, risk assessments, monitoring activities, and reporting frameworks.
• Ensure the organization maintains effective internal controls to support regulatory compliance and ethical business conduct.
• Lead the design and implementation of corrective action plans for identified compliance gaps.
• Foster a strong culture of compliance and ethics across all business units.

Regulatory Oversight

• Monitor and interpret applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations affecting commercial casualty insurance operations.
• Oversee compliance with Department of Insurance (DOI) requirements, state insurance codes, unfair claims practices laws, surplus lines rules (if applicable), producer licensing standards, and market conduct requirements.
• Ensure compliance with filing requirements, policy form and rate requirements, surplus and statutory reporting obligations, premium tax requirements, and enterprise governance standards.
• Serve as primary compliance liaison with regulators, auditors, and external agencies.
• Coordinate responses to regulatory inquiries, audits, examinations, and investigations.

Claims and Operational Compliance

• Oversee compliance related to commercial casualty claims intake, coverage determinations, reserving, litigation management, subrogation, and settlement practices.
• Monitor timeliness, accuracy, and fairness of claim investigations, payments, denials, and communications.
• Ensure adherence to state-specific unfair claims settlement practices acts, notice requirements, policy provisions, and bad faith risk controls.
• Review underwriting, policy issuance, endorsements, billing, and renewals to identify compliance vulnerabilities and process improvement opportunities.
• Support fraud prevention, anti-money laundering (if applicable), and special investigations initiatives.

Enterprise Risk Management

• Conduct enterprise compliance risk assessments and develop mitigation strategies.
• Partner with Legal, Internal Audit, Risk Management, HR, IT, and Operations to address emerging risks.
• Oversee issue tracking, remediation efforts, and root cause analysis.
• Develop compliance dashboards, key risk indicators (KRIs), and executive reports.

Privacy, Data Security, and Confidentiality

• Ensure compliance with GLBA, state privacy laws, cybersecurity standards, breach notification requirements, and confidentiality obligations.
• Oversee privacy incident response, breach reporting, and employee training.
• Collaborate with IT and Information Security on data governance and controls.

Ethics and Training

• Maintain code of conduct, conflict of interest processes, and ethics reporting mechanisms.
• Administer compliance hotline, investigations, and non-retaliation protocols.
• Develop and deliver compliance education and training programs for employees, leadership, and Board members.
• Promote awareness of legal and ethical obligations throughout the company.

Governance and Board Reporting

• Provide regular compliance updates to executive leadership and the Board/Compliance Committee.
• Present findings, risk trends, regulatory developments, and program effectiveness measures.
• Support Board oversight responsibilities and governance best practices.

Vendor and Delegated Oversight

• Establish compliance oversight for third-party administrators (TPAs), claims vendors, MGAs, brokers, reinsurance partners, and other business partners.
• Conduct vendor audits and performance reviews to ensure contractual and regulatory compliance.
• Ensure appropriate oversight of outsourced claims, underwriting support, policy administration, and delegated authority functions.

Qualifications
Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Healthcare Administration, Risk Management, Law, Finance, or related field required.
• Master’s degree, JD, or related advanced degree preferred.

Experience

• 10+ years of progressive compliance, legal, regulatory, or risk management experience in property and casualty insurance, commercial casualty, or related industry.
• Minimum 5 years in a senior leadership role with enterprise compliance oversight.
• Strong knowledge of commercial casualty insurance operations, underwriting, claims administration, policy servicing, and regulatory frameworks.
• Experience managing regulatory audits, market conduct exams, and corrective action plans.

Preferred Certifications

• Certified Compliance & Ethics Professional (CCEP)
• Certified Insurance Compliance Professional (CICP)
• Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) or similar

Knowledge, Skills, and Competencies

• Deep knowledge of commercial casualty regulations, insurance compliance requirements, and market conduct expectations.
• Strong understanding of underwriting, claims operations, policy administration, reinsurance, and producer oversight.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and relationship management skills.
• Ability to influence executive leadership and cross-functional teams.
• Strong analytical, investigative, and problem-solving abilities.
• High ethical standards and sound judgment.
• Experience with compliance software, reporting tools, and data analytics.

Success Measures

• Regulatory audit and exam outcomes.
• Reduction in compliance incidents and repeat findings.
• Timely corrective action closure.
• Employee training completion and awareness metrics.
• Effectiveness of compliance monitoring and reporting.
• Improvement in operational controls and risk mitigation.

Work Environment

• Executive leadership role requiring collaboration across underwriting, claims, finance, legal, actuarial, IT, distribution, and operations.
• May require travel for regulatory meetings, audits, conferences, and multi-state operational oversight.

Determining compensation for this role (and others) at Vaco/Highspring depends upon a wide array of factors including but not limited to the individual’s skill sets, experience and training, licensure and certifications, office location and other geographic considerations, as well as other business and organizational needs. With that said, as required by local law in geographies that require salary range disclosure, Vaco/Highspring notes the salary range for the role is noted in this job posting. The individual may also be eligible for discretionary bonuses, and can participate in medical, dental, and vision benefits as well as the company’s 401(k) retirement plan. Additional disclaimer: Unless otherwise noted in the job description, the position Vaco/Highspring is filing for is occupied. Please note, however, that Vaco/Highspring is regularly asked to provide talent to other organizations. By submitting to this position, you are agreeing to be included in our talent pool for future hiring for similarly qualified positions. Submissions to this position are subject to the use of AI to perform preliminary candidate screenings, focused on ensuring minimum job requirements noted in the position are satisfied. Further assessment of candidates beyond this initial phase within Vaco/Highspring will be otherwise assessed by recruiters and hiring managers. Vaco/Highspring does not have knowledge of the tools used by its clients in making final hiring decisions and cannot opine on their use of AI products.