Senior Actuary, Product Development

At American Equity Investment Life Holding Company ® we offer leading annuity products that help empower our clients to fulfill their needs and wants in retirement. Our success comes from hiring high-energy individuals who embody the beliefs that drive our unique culture. We currently fund over half a million retirements nationwide, and have been headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa, for over twenty-five years with satellite offices in Charlotte, NC and New York, NY.

General Purpose Of The Job

Provides pricing support and analysis for new and existing products. Design and build new pricing frameworks and analysis as well as prepare and present the results of the analysis to the Managing Actuary, Product Development and senior leadership. Work independently to identify the requirements of projects and execute required tasks. Aid in researching non-financial aspects of new product concepts including regulatory filings, operational requirements, and administrative system 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:
• provide educated and thorough feedback on product concepts, and
• generate original product concepts, factoring 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
• Perform other related work as assigned.
  
Supervisory Responsibilities

Direct Reports: 0

Certificates, Licenses, Professional Designations


• Actuary (ASA required), Senior Actuary (FSA required)
• MAAA
  
  
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 understand 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 Science, Mathematics, Statistics or other quantitative fields
• 7 years of experience in annuity pricing and product development.
• Proficient in the use of excel
• Experience with Stochastic Modeling, or Deterministic Approximations thereof
• MG-ALFA experience highly preferred
• Experience with hedging and arbitrage free, risk-neutral pricing/valuation concepts
• Excellent verbal Communication, facilitation, and relationship management experience
• MS Office Suite experience