Senior Actuary, Product Development

AtAmerican Equity Investment Life Holding Company, we think of ourselves asThe Financial Dignity Company. Our policyholders work with independent agents, banks and broker-dealers through our wholly-owned operating subsidiaries, to choose one of our leading annuity products best suited for their personal needs to create financial dignity in retirement. We remain steadfast in our commitment to quality products, excellent customer service, integrity, safety and delivering on our promises to our policyholders. Our success comes from hiring people who embody the beliefs that drive our unique, energetic, fast-paced and caring culture of collaboration, ownership and innovation.

We currently fund over half a million retirements nationwide, and have been headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa, for over twenty-five years, withsatellite offices slated to open in 2022 in Charlotte, NC, and New York, NY. We are a NYSE-listed company and maintain an "excellent" rating from AM Best. Our companyhas over $57 billion in assets, 26,000 active agents and over 650 employees.

GENERAL PURPOSE OF THE JOB:

This actuary provides pricing support and analysis for new and existing products. The actuary will design and build new pricing frameworks and analysis as well as prepare and present the results of the analysis to the Manager, Product Development and senior leadership. They will work independently to identify the requirements of projects and develop and execute on the required tasks. The actuary will also aid in researching non-financial aspects of new product concepts including regulatory filings, operational requirements, and admin development.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Performs technical analysis for new and existing products
• Develop framework to assess the risk and profitability of new and existing annuity product concepts
• Perform initial economic feasibility analysis
• Build pricing models using MG ALFA that will require significant creativity and custom coding to assess a variety of unique products and product features
• Develop assumptions for products
• Explore and understand reserve and capital impacts
• Price/value embedded derivatives and assess hedging implications and costs
• Utilize strong actuarial & risk management knowledge including stochastic modeling and understanding of hedging and embedded derivatives to capture all potential risks and costs in pricing analysis
• Create presentations & documentation of analysis to present results to senior management & other key stakeholders

• Participate in & contribute to product ideation process
• Participate & contribute to discussions regarding potential future product concepts
• Apply deep technical understanding of pricing, hedging, solvency standards and financial reporting to:
1. provide educated and thorough feedback on product concepts, and
2. generate original product concepts factor in enterprise objectives and constraints
• Develop & employ creative and innovative solutions to challenges that arise in the development, design, pricing, and implementation of new product concepts
• Utilize strong actuarial & risk management knowledge and understanding of hedging and embedded derivatives to apply in development and assessment of new concepts
• Accountable to work with ALM, valuation, finance, tax, hedging, legal, and various other partners as part of the new product development and implementation process to ensure pricing analysis accounts for all key elements involved in product concept
• Partner with hedging team to ensure hedging costs are incorporated into pricing and risk analysis

• Responsible for governance required within pricing and modeling work, ensuring pricing and modeling meets internal Product Development Process governance and other governance and documentation requirements
• Responsible for development and management of actuarial staff

• Perform other related work as assigned.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Direct Reports: 2

CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, PROFESSIONAL DESIGNATIONS:

• FSA
• MAAA
• CFA a plus

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

• Candidate must have strong understanding of, and be able to participate in highly technical discussions surrounding annuity pricing concepts, including profitability mechanics, sources of risk, and solvency & accounting requirements
• Candidate must have strong understanding of risk-neutral pricing & hedging concepts
• Candidate must be able to independently identify potential challenges surrounding new product concepts and explore potential solutions
• Candidate must have strong verbal and written communication skills to present and discuss results of analysis
• Candidate must have experience building annuity pricing frameworks using industry standard annuity pricing software, or have strong software coding background to be applied to learning standard annuity pricing software. Applications will include:
  • Coding new products & features
  • Summarizing modeling results
  • Developing new metrics and methods for summarizing results to capture and communicate relevant risks of various designs
• Proficient in the use of Microsoft Office Suite including Word, Excel, Visio, Microsoft Project and Outlook.
• Minimal to no travel is required in this position.

EDUCATION AND/OR EXPERIENCE:

• B.S. in Actuarial, Mathematics or other quantitative fields
• FSA with 7+ years of experience in annuity pricing and product development.
• Proficient in the use of excel
• Experience with Stochastic Modeling, or Deterministic Approximations there of (MG-ALFA a plus)
• Experience with hedging and arbitrage free, risk-neutral pricing/valuation concepts
• Excellent verbal Communication, facilitation, and relationship management experience
• MS Office Suite experience