State Product Manager - Personal Lines

If you’re passionate about helping people protect what matters most to them at a Fortune 100 company with nearly $70 billion in annual sales, as well as innovating and simplifying processes and operations to provide the best customer value, then Nationwide’s Property and Casualty team could be the place for you! At Nationwide®, “on your side” goes beyond just words. Our customers and partners are at the center of everything we do and we’re looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.

Job Description Summary

Our work is essential to helping Nationwide build future capability to serve customer needs. Keeping existing products relevant and marketable and building new products takes research, critical thinking, practicality and collaboration. If you enjoy gathering input and information, working independently and on a team and creating innovative solutions for customers, we want to know more about you!

The State Manager creates multi-year state-specific business strategy to drive our Personal Lines Portfolio of products to meet or exceed top and bottom-line performance aligning to enterprise goals and strategy. This position is responsible for driving strategic alignment through the launch and refinement of product offerings (pricing, underwriting appetite and product structure and enhancements) and distribution strategy. This includes developing and implementing plans and processes related to financial planning, rate reviews, market development and communication of state management. Working directly with PL business stakeholders, the State Manager aggressively collaborates in the development, execution and monitoring of operating plans resulting in P&L objectives, including the areas of combined ratio, revenue growth, regulatory management, and legal compliance. The State Manager is responsible for building winning strategies to address complex business issues such as maximizing the opportunity of assigned state markets. Your work will support regional and corporate objectives through ongoing analysis and monitoring of results and communicating results with leadership, distribution and underwriting partners. Keeping existing state strategic direction relevant, competitive, and profitable requires research, critical thinking, practicality and collaboration. 

Job Description

Key Responsibilities:   

• Develop, implement, and manage strategic plans for assigned states, incorporating top/bottom line performance designed to meet or exceed Personal Lines objectives. 

• Owns strategy and performance for assigned state(s).

• Analyzes and reviews financial results, product profitability, business mix and competitive information and forecasts performance.  

• Collaborate with Sales, Marketing, Operations, Claims, Actuarial, Underwriting, Technology, and Legal to align stakeholders in the execution of state-specific strategies.  

• Monitor performance, communicate and influence action to address product/pricing issues, strategies, and financial results with appropriate stakeholders and leadership. 

• Maintains in-depth knowledge of the personal lines industry, state markets, regulatory environment, and current economic and business trends. 

• Develop and maintain formal relationships with state regulatory agencies and trade associations. 

• Coordinate and facilitate communication across functions and state management team.       

• Applies judgment, understanding and curiosity to data and provides high level analysis considering multiple complexities to build fully developed solutions.

• Communicates information regarding products, pricing and organizational decisions to internal and external partners verbally and in writing. Translates data and strategic concepts into understandable communications to be shared with multiple audiences. 

• May participate in cross functional teams to complete projects or support the business. Provides strong leadership, is approachable, and instills trust at all levels. 

• Lead all aspects of associate management including performance, salary planning and administration, training and development, workflow and organization planning, day-to-day management, hiring and placement and disciplinary actions for direct reports. 

May perform other responsibilities as assigned.

Reporting Relationships: Reports to AVP, State Product Manager – Personal Lines or Sr State Product Manager – Personal Lines. Up to two direct reports and no indirect reports.

Typical Skills and Experiences:   

Education: Bachelor’s degree in insurance, actuarial science, mathematics, risk management, economics, finance, accounting, business administration or related subject area or Master of Business Administration degree preferred.

License/Certification/Designation: Progress toward or completion of CPCU, AU CIC, INS ARM, actuarial exams or similar designations preferred.

Experience: Eight years of experience in underwriting or product preferred. Cross-functional experience from other areas and experience with data analysis preferred.

Knowledge, Abilities and Skills:   Detailed knowledge of core business functions, personal lines insurance products and pricing architecture, state regulations, underwriting procedures and standard methodologies. Solid understanding of financials, trend analysis and competitor data. Proficiency in analytical tools, relational databases, data visualization techniques, query-based language and/or statistical software experience preferred. Excellent verbal and written communication skills to present information, communicate and influence internal and external partners at all levels. Skilled in the use of related systems and analytical tools. Ability to drive for results, deal with ambiguity, solve problems, learn on the job, make quality decisions, see trends and patterns within data. Ability to manage projects, opposing priorities, timelines and resources to complete work. Strong organizational agility and political savvy preferred.

Other criteria, including leadership skills, competencies and experiences may take precedence.  

Staffing exceptions to the above must be approved by the hiring manager’s leader and HR Business Partner. Depending on level, the approvers may change.  

Values: Regularly and consistently demonstrates Nationwide Values. 

Job Conditions:

Overtime Eligibility: Not Eligible (Exempt)

Working Conditions: Normal office environment.  

ADA: The above statements cover what are generally believed to be principal and essential functions of this job.  Specific circumstances may allow or require some people assigned to the job to perform a somewhat different combination of duties.   

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