Vice President of Actuarial Services – Commercial Casualty
Position Summary
The Vice President of Actuarial Services is a senior executive responsible for leading the company’s actuarial function across pricing, reserving, financial forecasting, risk analytics, capital management, and strategic decision support. Ideal candidate will have experience in Workers’ Compensation. This role ensures the organization maintains actuarially sound underwriting practices, adequate loss reserves, profitable growth strategies, and regulatory compliance in a dynamic commercial casualty insurance environment.
The VP of Actuarial Services partners closely with executive leadership, underwriting, claims, finance, reinsurance, compliance, and distribution teams to drive profitability, support market competitiveness, and strengthen enterprise risk management.
Key Responsibilities
Actuarial Leadership and Strategy
- Develop and lead the company’s overall actuarial strategy aligned with enterprise financial goals, growth targets, and risk appetite.
- Provide executive leadership to pricing, reserving, analytics, and actuarial operations teams.
- Build and maintain a high-performing actuarial department with strong technical, analytical, and leadership capabilities.
- Establish actuarial governance, controls, methodologies, and documentation standards.
- Serve as a key strategic advisor to the CEO, CFO, and Board on financial performance, risk trends, and emerging issues.
Pricing and Product Management
- Lead development, maintenance, and refinement of pricing models for commercial casualty lines, including general liability, auto liability, umbrella/excess, professional liability, and specialty coverages.
- Evaluate rate adequacy, underwriting profitability, loss trends, market competitiveness, and product performance.
- Recommend rate changes, product modifications, and underwriting strategies based on actuarial analysis.
- Support new product development, market expansion, and portfolio optimization initiatives.
- Partner with underwriting leadership on risk selection, pricing discipline, and profitability improvement opportunities.
Reserving and Loss Analytics
- Oversee quarterly and annual reserve analyses to ensure adequacy of case reserves, IBNR, and ultimate loss projections.
- Monitor claim development patterns, severity/frequency trends, litigation exposure, and emerging loss issues.
- Partner with claims leadership to identify reserve strengthening opportunities and claims process improvements.
- Present reserve recommendations and actuarial opinions to executive leadership and the Board.
- Ensure timely completion of reserve studies, financial statement support, and audit requirements.
Financial Planning and Forecasting
- Lead actuarial support for budgeting, financial planning, premium forecasts, and long-range business projections.
- Support statutory reporting, GAAP/IFRS financial analysis, and surplus/capital adequacy assessments.
- Develop profitability analyses by product, segment, geography, and distribution channel.
- Provide scenario modeling for catastrophe exposure, economic changes, social inflation, and loss cost volatility.
- Partner with finance on earnings projections, business planning, and expense allocation methodologies.
Reinsurance and Risk Management
- Support reinsurance strategy, treaty structure evaluation, attachment point analysis, and retention optimization.
- Assess ceded and net loss exposures and recommend reinsurance purchasing strategies.
- Support enterprise risk management activities, including capital modeling and stress testing.
- Evaluate emerging risks such as social inflation, legal trends, reserve deterioration, and macroeconomic impacts.
Regulatory and Compliance Support
- Ensure actuarial practices comply with applicable insurance regulations, actuarial standards of practice (ASOPs), and statutory requirements.
- Support rate and form filings, DOI inquiries, financial exams, and market conduct reviews.
- Coordinate actuarial support for audits, peer reviews, and internal control assessments.
- Maintain strong actuarial governance and model risk management practices.
Data Analytics and Technology
- Oversee actuarial systems, data quality initiatives, predictive analytics tools, and reporting platforms.
- Drive innovation in pricing sophistication, automation, dashboard reporting, and decision support tools.
- Partner with IT and data teams to improve data integrity and analytics capabilities.
- Promote use of advanced analytics, AI, and predictive modeling where appropriate.
Leadership and Collaboration
- Lead and mentor actuarial staff, fostering professional development and succession planning.
- Build strong relationships across underwriting, claims, finance, legal, compliance, and executive teams.
- Communicate complex actuarial concepts clearly to non-technical stakeholders.
- Support Board committees and executive meetings with actionable actuarial insights.
Qualifications
Education
- Bachelor’s degree in Actuarial Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Finance, Economics, or related field required.
- Master’s degree preferred.
Credentials
- Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society (FCAS) strongly preferred.
- Associate of the Casualty Actuarial Society (ACAS) with significant leadership experience considered.
- Member in good standing with applicable actuarial professional organizations.
Experience
- Workers’ Compensation experience is required for this role.
- 10+ years of progressive actuarial experience in property and casualty insurance, with significant commercial casualty expertise.
- Minimum 5 years in senior actuarial leadership or management roles.
- Strong experience in pricing, reserving, forecasting, and regulatory support.
- Experience with reinsurance analysis, capital modeling, and enterprise risk management.
- Demonstrated success leading actuarial teams and influencing executive decisions.
Knowledge, Skills, and Competencies
- Deep understanding of commercial casualty insurance products, claims development, and loss drivers.
- Strong technical actuarial knowledge, including predictive modeling and reserving methodologies.
- Expertise in statutory accounting, insurance financial reporting, and solvency considerations.
- Advanced analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Excellent communication and executive presentation skills.
- Strong business acumen and strategic thinking.
- High attention to detail, integrity, and sound judgment.
- Proficiency with actuarial software, data visualization tools, and enterprise systems.
Success Measures
- Rate adequacy and pricing accuracy.
- Reserve adequacy and financial stability.
- Improved underwriting profitability and loss ratio performance.
- Accuracy of forecasts and business projections.
- Timely and compliant regulatory filings.
- Strong actuarial team performance and retention.
Work Environment
- Executive leadership role requiring collaboration across underwriting, claims, finance, reinsurance, IT, and executive management.
- May require travel for Board meetings, regulator interactions, audits, and industry conferences.
Pay: $225,000.00 - $285,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- AD&D insurance
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Life insurance
- Paid time off
- Vision insurance
Work Location: Remote
