Individual Product Development Director

Job Description

At Ameritas, fulfilling life is what we do daily. We continuously strive to help our customers and employees enjoy life at its very best by reducing uncertainty, helping grow assets and protecting what is most cherished. We're here to help people put worry behind and the future ahead and help enable a life that's rich in family, happiness, health and financial security. When lives are fulfilled, our mission is fulfilled.

Ameritas Life Insurance Corp is seeking a Director, Individual Product Development to drive the business by providing leadership for the product development team responsible for new business profitability, design, pricing, implementation and launch of new products in order to achieve corporate strategy, profit targets and sales growth objectives. Management of the product portfolio involves balancing marketability and competitiveness with customer needs/expectations, distribution channel needs and characteristics and corporate profitability objectives. Additional considerations include market conditions, expense parameters, cycle time requirements, administrative implications, and implementation costs.

What you do:

Design and Development

• Manage the life product development team and process for new business profitability, design, pricing, implementation and launch of life new products. Partner with Risk Management Investments to establish crediting strategies and spread expectations. Deliver and maintain products that support the overall corporate strategy, profit and sales objectives.
• Collaborate with key Field Advisors, Division Senior Management, Sales Marketing and other significant constituents to develop and evaluate new product ideas and establish product priorities. Manage and direct the process to secure product approval from the IOC including a concept overview, cost/benefit analysis, business specifications, profit and sales expectations and risks.
• Foster an innovative culture that embraces breakthrough concepts, strategies, and distinctive products to achieve and sustain competitive advantage and profitable growth. Develop and manage a support staff with capabilities to generate and evaluate new ideas as well as the technical capabilities to effectively evaluate the risks and profit potential.
• Coordinate with multiple functional teams to evaluate the ongoing product line resource capacity to ensure that the strategic objectives of the product portfolio are being met. Continually work to ensure product design, development, and management processes support the expense, cycle time, and delivery capabilities required to meet corporate objectives.

Profitability

• Position is accountable for new business profitability as measured by corporate objectives (e.g. statutory IRR, profit margin, GAAP ROE, and other metrics). Individual is responsible for maintaining the capability to effectively evaluate the profitability of the new business product portfolio and collaborating with Sales and Product Management to monitor and manage the profitability of each product and the overall product mix.
• Partner with Product Management unit and Competitive Intelligence to monitor product spreads, overall profitability and competitiveness to recommend crediting strategies and new business rates. This includes all non-guaranteed elements including fixed rates, index linked parameters and dividend scales related to products currently being marketed.
• Develop and maintain models to price all new products being marketed by partnering with the modeling team as well as the product management team on assumptions. Ensure that such product models are suitable for handoff of in-force modeling.

Collaboration

• Collaborate with distribution on strategies to manage product mix
• Partner with advanced sales to develop and promote sales concepts
• Collaborate with competitive intelligence team to establish product strengths and weakness vs. key competitors in the development phase as well as product promotion and positioning with the field
• Handle exception requests related to sales
• Negotiate reinsurance treaties for new products and incorporate impact of such treaties in product pricing

What you bring:

• Attainment of Fellow of Society of Actuaries and Member of the American Academy of Actuaries.
• 7-10 years of experience as a practicing actuary
• Must have a proven track record of application of actuarial principles, pricing methodology, and assumption development.
• Experience in a product development role working with life and/or annuity products preferred. Experience may have been gained in the areas of investments, asset/liability management, Sales or marketing, technical roles such as valuation, finance/accounting/auditing, or risk management.
• Experience managing complex and multi functional teams.

What we offer:

• Our company motto is "Fulfilling Life" and we take that job seriously, with a heavy commitment to volunteering and community support, employee well-being, and providing quality products and services that help our customers create a brighter future.
• Being a mutual-based organization, the return on our investment goes back into the company, to benefit our members/customers.
• We're committed to professional development, opportunity, inclusion and diversity. Team building and collaboration are also priorities.
• A total rewards package with all the comprehensive health and welfare benefits you'd expect, including competitive pay and incentives, 401(k), flexible work schedules and time off to care for yourself and others.
• Additional popular benefits, including tuition reimbursement, and student loan repayment, an incentivized well-being program, adoption assistance, paid time off for volunteering, training and career development opportunities.

An Equal Opportunity Employer:

Ameritas has a reputation as a company that cares, and because everyone should feel safe bringing their authentic, whole self to work, we're committed to an inclusive culture and diverse workplace, enriched by our individual differences. We are an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer that hires based on qualifications, positive attitude and exemplary work ethic, regardless of sex, race, color, national origin, religion, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by law.

Company Video

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