Vice President, Product Management (Hiring Immediately)

Utica First Insurance
Job Description and Standard of Performance

Job Summary

The Vice President of Product Management is an executive responsible for the strategy, performance, and long-term sustainability of the Small Commercial and Personal lines P&C insurance portfolio. Reporting directly to the CEO, this role has enterprise-level accountability for product design, pricing adequacy, and portfolio performance in support to deliver long-term value to policyholders.

This leader owns the full product lifecycle while providing executive oversight of actuarial functions, ensuring pricing, underwriting intent, and risk selection are aligned with the company’s financial strength, surplus objectives, and regulatory obligations.

Reports To: Chief Executive Officer

Duties/Responsibilities

Enterprise Product Strategy & Portfolio Ownership

• Set and execute the enterprise Small Commercial / Personal product strategy in partnership with the CEO and executive leadership team.
• Own portfolio-level performance across Small Commercial land Personal lines. 
• Balance growth, underwriting discipline, and long-term surplus protection consistent with company principles.
• Lead decisions on new product development, geographic expansion, line optimization, and market exits.
• Responsible for introducing and rolling out new products including lines of business and classes.
• Work across the organization to evaluate and enter new markets.

Product Development & Lifecycle Governance

• Own end-to-end lifecycle management of Small Commercial and Personal lines products, from ideation through filing, launch, monitoring, and refinement.
• Ensure product coverage, underwriting rules, pricing, and operational execution are tightly aligned.
• Oversee regulatory filings and product governance in collaboration with Compliance and Legal.
• Champion simplicity, clarity, and ease of doing business for agents and policyholders.

Actuarial Oversight & Pricing Authority

• Provide executive oversight of actuarial functions supporting products.
• Partner with the Actuarial team to:
• Ensure rate adequacy, pricing discipline, and long-term rate stability.
• Oversee actuarial indications, rate filings, and responses to regulatory inquiries.
• Monitor emerging loss trends, reserve impacts, and exposure shifts.
• Oversee pricing, rate, and product governance meetings.
• Translate actuarial analysis into strategic product, underwriting, and growth decisions.
• Escalate material pricing, loss, or surplus risks directly to the CEO.
• Create Underwriting pricing tools
• Build out of operational data tools and dashboards.

Financial Performance & Risk Management

• Own product-level financial outcomes, including growth, loss ratio, expense ratio, retention.
• Partner with underwriting leadership on growth and profitability to ensure full product appetite is being written and renewed.
• Monitor performance against pricing assumptions and underwriting objectives.
• Drive corrective actions when results deviate from expectations, including rate actions, underwriting changes, or product modifications.
• Support reinsurance strategy, capital planning, and surplus management discussions and build reinsurance into product models.

Distribution & Market Leadership

• Partner with Marketing to align product strategy with distribution capabilities.
• Ensure agents are supported with clear product positioning, training, and rollout plans.
• Balance market competitiveness with underwriting quality and long-term policyholder value.

Executive Leadership, Governance & Board Interaction

• Serve as a member of the executive leadership team.
• Provide regular updates to the CEO and Board on product performance, pricing adequacy, and emerging risks.
• Prepare and present product and actuarial insights for Board and committee meetings.
• Uphold governance standards consistent regulatory expectations.

Innovation & Modernization

• Drive modernization of product, pricing, and policy administration capabilities.
• Partner with Technology to enable automation, data-driven decisioning, and scalable growth as well as timely implementation of rates and new product offerings.
• Ensure product and pricing frameworks adapt to evolving risks, regulatory change, and market conditions.

Leadership Competencies

• Enterprise mindset with strong CEO-level partnership
• Long-term, policyholder-focused decision making
• Pricing and underwriting credibility
• Clear, confident communicator at Board and regulator levels
• Disciplined, data-driven, and decisive leader

Education and Experience

• 12+ years of P&C insurance experience with deep focus on Small Commercial products.
• Experience in Product Management, Underwriting, and/or Actuarial leadership roles.
• Strong understanding of actuarial pricing, rate filings, regulatory compliance, and portfolio management.
• Proven ability to manage enterprise-level accountability.
• Experience presenting to Boards and senior executive leadership.

Physical Requirements

This position requires the ability to sit for extended periods while working at a computer, both in a home and office environment. The role involves frequent use of a headset, keyboard, mouse, and other standard office equipment. Occasional movement within the office may be required, such as walking to meetings or accessing shared equipment.

Utica First offers:

· Competitive starting salary

· Medical (first of following month)

· Dental

· Vision

· Life and Disability Insurance

· Company paid LTD

· Flexible Spending Accounts

· Health Savings Accounts

· Matching 401(k) Plan

· Roth 401k Plan

· Bonus program

· Generous Vacation, Sick and Personal Leave

· Generous holidays (to include Birthday)

· Business casual environment

Pay Range:

The actual amount to be offered to the successful candidate will be generally within the posted range but could differ dependent on the key aspects of each case which may include education, skills, experiences, location etc. as determined throughout the selection process.

Compensation details: 180000-240000 Yearly Salary

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