Head of Experience Insights & Assumption Management

Head of Experience Insights & Assumption Management

Full-Time

Boston, MA or Springfield, MA

The Opportunity

MassMutual is looking for an exceptional, well-rounded, highly motivated and collaborative actuary to lead the Experience Insights & Assumption Management team of 10+ professionals within the broader Corporate Actuarial team. The Head of Experience Insights & Assumption Management will partner closely with Corporate Actuarial, business and corporate stakeholders to create and execute on a roadmap for developing robust/detailed data pipelines, monitoring capabilities and translating emerging experience trends into actionable insights for senior management.

The Head of Experience Insights & Assumption Management will lead an impactful function responsible for developing and governing the experience analysis and assumption-setting processes across MassMutual’s insurance product portfolio. This leader must demonstrate deep actuarial and financial expertise, a strong understanding of product designs and features, performance, policyholder behavior and impacts to earnings drivers and have broad leadership capabilities that facilitate taking on expanded responsibilities and being considered for future succession opportunities. They will oversee the generation of actionable insights from experience studies, ensure assumptions are robust, transparent, and aligned with enterprise objectives as well as Experience Study and Assumption Governance development standards and bring thought leadership relating to experience studies and assumptions development that incorporates industry best practices into MassMutual’s capabilities. The leader will demonstrate excellent communication skills and present on experience/assumptions impacting business performance to the CFO senior leadership team and select executive-level committees including the Product Advisory Committee (PAC) and UW Surveillance Committee.

This role requires exceptional technical and analytical skills as well as superior business acumen to (1) provide the vision for and guide the development of frameworks and infrastructure that support assumption management and experience monitoring across various product lines and accounting bases, ensuring consistency, credibility, and responsiveness to emerging trends and regulatory expectations and (2) present and communicate on emerging experience trends and impacts to business/financials with clarity and credibility to various stakeholders and senior management. This leader will also need to establish strong relationships and collaborate effectively across the CFO organization, as well as with ERM, ETX - Actuarial Data Science, Product and Operations business partners.

The Impact

Reports to: Head of Dividend, Inforce Management and Experience Studies

Subordinates: Manage team of 10+ employees

As Head of Experience Insights & Assumption Management, this individual is expected to be:

• Accountable for experience studies and related liability actuarial assumptions across all of MassMutual’s insurance products and is expected to successfully partner with many key business stakeholders, including others in Corporate Actuarial, Product, CFO, ERM, ETX – Actuarial Data Science and Operations
• Responsible for leading, developing and managing a team of talented individuals who are responsible for performing experience studies and developing recommendations for actuarial assumptions related to mortality, longevity, morbidity, terminations, lapses, premium persistency benefit utilization and other policy holder behavior analysis across many of MassMutual’s businesses, including:
  • Retail and Group Life (including combination products)
  • Worksite (Life, Disability, Critical Illness, Accident, Medical Supplemental Insurance/Small Medical)
  • Individual Health (Disability, Long-Term Care and acceleration-type riders) and
  • Retail Annuity (MYGA, FIA, SPIA, DIA, VA and GLWB/GLDB riders)
• Lead the development and implementation of best practices around experience studies across lines of business and understand implications of updates to major insurance experience elements (mortality, lapses, etc.) to various “downstream” applications/consumers of assumptions (i.e. valuation, pricing, risk management, etc.)
• Drive the vision for the tools and reporting needed to support the team and other stakeholders with the storytelling around business results that connects emerging experience trends to company financials
• Influence development of and ensure adherence to corporate and actuarial standards on assumption development
• Serve as a voting member of the Experience Studies and Assumption Governance Steering Committee as well as sit on various sub-committees (e.g. Life, Health, Annuity, Institutional, etc.)
• Drive the direction/strategy regarding (i) the development of COMET (Continuous Monitoring Experience Tool) and experience pipelines in close collaboration with the Head of Assumption Oversight and Actuarial Data Science and (ii) maturing existing (i.e. Underwriting) and standing up other feedback loops with key stakeholders across the organization
• Stay abreast of underwriting and predictive model changes to provide thought leadership, technical expertise and collaborate with Pricing teams who support the quantification of actuarial assumption changes
• Leverage expertise and industry insights from participation in select industry groups (e.g. SOA LIMRA Experience Studies Advisory Council) and elsewhere to inform experience monitoring and assumption methodology updates
• Establish strong credibility and executive presence with key stakeholders to effectively drive ideas forward, impact management decision-making, and translate experience insights into action
• Provide team leadership, clear communications and strong partnership with the Pricing teams, Underwriting, Claims, Data Science and other Corporate Actuarial  stakeholders (e.g. statistical models, new products, estimate quantification of assumption recommendations)
• Contribute to Corporate Actuarial thought leadership and positive team culture

The Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree or higher
• Fellow of Society of Actuaries (FSA), or equivalent professional credential from recognized professional actuarial association
• 10+ years of actuarial experience, preferably in the U.S. market, in areas such as pricing, valuation, financial planning, CFT/ALM, reinsurance and/or experience studies
• Strong knowledge of actuarial concepts and practices as well as of US life, annuity, and health insurance products; experience with quantifying, analyzing and managing a range of product risks and/or assumptions
• Innovative, self-motivated and independent with strong analytical, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills; comfortable dealing with both complexity and ambiguity, and able to explore multiple solutions to problems and challenges
• Effective time management, planning and organization skills
• Strong communication (both written and verbal) and influencing skills: ability to convey complex issues senior management; Ability to work well under pressure and manage multiple deliverables
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to build and maintain strong working relationships across cross-functional groups
• Demonstrable experience with creative problem-solving and thought leadership
• Experience with managing teams and demonstrates ability to attract, retain and develop strong talent
• Deep experience with data science, analytics and visualization skills (e.g., Python, R, SQL, Tableau, Power BI, Alteryx) and leveraging generative AI tools to enhance workflows and analysis
• Experience in presenting or writing research papers or other industry participation is a plus

What to Expect as Part of MassMutual and the Team

• Regular meetings with the team
• Focused one-on-one meetings with your manager
• Networking opportunities including access to Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, African American, women, LGBTQ, Veteran and disability-focused Business Resource Groups
• Access to learning content on Degreed and other informational platforms
• Your ethics and integrity will be valued by a company with a strong and stable ethical business with industry leading pay and benefits

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MassMutual is an equal employment opportunity employer. We welcome all persons to apply.

If you need an accommodation to complete the application process, please contact us and share the specifics of the assistance you need.