Vice President, Product Management

Utica First Insurance Company•Oriskany, NY

1d•$180,000 - $240,000

About The Position

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.

Requirements

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
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.

Responsibilities

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.