AVP, M&A & Reinsurance Risk Analyst

The Assistant Vice President (AVP) of Transaction Risk Management is responsible for supporting the identification, assessment, monitoring, and mitigation of reinsurance transaction risks within the organization. This role involves working closely with pricing actuaries, corporate development, investments, and other functions to evaluate proposed reinsurance transactions. Through effective, in-depth challenge, this role will assure all key risks are identified and disclosed, assumptions are reasonable, pricing models are accurate, and transaction governance requirements are followed. The AVP will advise the SVP Life & Annuity Risk Officer and the Fortitude CRO on transactions prior to submission of offers.

This position will report into the SVP Life & Annuity Risk Officer and will be an experienced technical contributor playing a key role in the risk oversight of Fortitude Re’s life and annuity reinsurance transactions.

This role will be based in our Jersey City, NJ office on a hybrid basis.

What You Will Do:

• Review transaction documents including deal information memorandum, appraisals, product profiles, contracts, experience studies, and other materials associated with prospective transactions.
• Review pricing assumptions and internal underwriting diligence.
• Review the analysis of cedants’ experience to ensure sufficient diligence was performed, data is credible, and proper controls were employed in setting assumptions.
• Review investment strategies and their inherent risks in light of liabilities in a given transaction.
• Ensure pricing assumptions are reasonable in light of cedant’s experience, company experience, industry experience, and professional judgment.
• Validate pricing models and results.
• Review pricing model design, results, and the peer review (challenger) process.
• Recommend sensitivity and stress tests and evaluate their impacts.
• Perform independent validation of pricing models in their entirety or specific pricing results, including the development of replication models where necessary.
• Identify, assess, and communicate deal risks.
• Risks include, but are not limited to, actuarial assumption risk, investment risks (credit, ALM, liquidity), operational risk, regulatory and tax risk, and expense risk.
• Evaluate proposed risk mitigation strategies and their potential effectiveness.
• Document risks for management presentations and in ERM risk memorandums.
• Advise SVP L&A Risk Officer and CRO on deal economics and risks in advance of bid decision making.
• Ensure full compliance with the company’s transaction and pricing governance standards.

What You Will Have:

• Bachelor’s or advanced degree in actuarial science, mathematics, statistics, engineering, or comparable program of study.
• A minimum of 7 years of relevant insurance experience. Insurance product pricing experience is preferred, but not required, as diverse actuarial experience is invaluable. See key skill sets below for more information on experience needs.
• Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA) or comparable accreditation is preferred. Career ASAs with very strong experience will be considered. 
• Quantitative risk management experience (such as investment management or quantitative finance) with sufficient applied insurance background will also be considered.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills.  
• Candidates must be able to collaborate effectively with others and quickly disseminate information. 
• Candidates must have a strong foundation of technical knowledge pertaining to life insurance and/or annuity products and their inherent risks.
  • Understanding diverse insurance product designs, product pricing principles, and ALM is critical.
  • Experience with pricing or other applied insurance ALM modeling is important.
  • Applied experience with Bermuda and/or Solvency II accounting and capital frameworks is a plus but is not required.
  • The company will consider candidates with varied backgrounds such as risk management, valuation, modeling, or pricing.
• Candidates should be inquisitive and active learners that seek to grow their understanding in all they do.
  • The nature of this role involves evaluation of diverse, often complex or incomplete, financial information.
  • Having the ability to independently analyze and draw insightful conclusions from such situations is critical to the role. 
  • The nature of this role may also require analytical research of technical and sometimes theoretical matters, where information is lacking, and expert judgment is required.
• Candidates should have technical proficiency in actuarial calculations, analyses and models. 
  • Candidates for this role should have well-developed modeling skills with the ability to use / review work in current actuarial software platforms such as AXIS, MG ALFA, or comparable.
  • In addition, candidates should have the ability to develop solutions as needed in programming and/or database languages to perform analyses. 
  • Proficiency in one or more of the following is required: Python, VBA, SQL, C, or similar.  

#LI-Hybrid