It is not that hard. All you have to do is research these job postings and, when you find one that sounds interesting to you, read the insurance product manager job description for that company and niche.
Insurance product managers are making an average of $62,000 per year nationally, and some are making six figures. So, what should you be looking for if you are going to consider an insurance product manager career?
First, you should find insurance companies who produce and sell insurance products that you find interesting, believe in strongly, or just happen to like: life insurance, health insurance, long-term care insurance, property and casualty (P&C) insurance, etc. As an insurance product manager, generally speaking, you will be focusing on corporate product strategies and new products' research and development with your objective being to improve product development capacity and to provide insurance products that will drive profitable growth. To this end, you will run a team that wants to upgrade the company's existing product portfolios, improve the sales and marketing processes, and help to develop new-and-improved company market offerings.
In general you will be expected to:
- Come up with a long-term insurance product marketing strategy.
- Head up the business case development and return-on-investment analysis; this means you will have to look at actuarial, sales, and insurance-in-force statistics, and so on and so forth.
- Be a company expert with regards to knowledge of your competitors, your company's client-and-prospect needs, and your company's inside product strategy and rationalization methods.
- Be responsible for creating and managing company-wide implementation teams of varying complexity and a long-term product shelf-life vision in accord with your company's overall strategy and business plan objectives for achieving profitable growth while leading large, complex, and cross-functional teams to plan out new product offerings to give your company a competitive advantage over time.
- Be expected to define the client value proposition for your products' implementations.
- Be in charge of developing and implementing major new product development tools and methodologies that will impact a significant number of your company's departments and sales force members.
- Be a significant role player in coming up with long-term business plans to develop, sell, and evaluate the particular insurance products of your company or division.
- Be a department spokesperson to your company's external partners and allies.
- A BA or BS in a field such as business administration, economics, financial planning, healthcare, or an MBA in general.
- A significant number of years of some kind of relevant product management experience in insurance or an industry related to the type of insurance product you would be responsible for developing and marketing. Many companies would also accept the right education and the right sales or management experience coupled with a demonstrable set of capabilities.
- Some employers may require you to have a consulting background and managerial-level experience in a specifically related field like finance, marketing, sales, product development, or a field related to the insurance products you will be responsible for. For instance, if you are going to be in health insurance product development, you could get hired away from a healthcare management job.
- Superior quantitative analysis and modeling skills.
- A capability for interpreting complex data in a way that enables you to formulate practical business solutions.
- Previous experience with product research and development, strategic market planning, and portfolio management can give you an advantage over other candidates.
- Excellent communication, presentation, facilitation, and interpersonal abilities.
- The ability to break down very complex information in a way that enables you to give intuitively understandable responses to questions from managers, clients, prospects, and the general public.
- Demonstrable leadership, consulting, project management, and program evaluation capability.
- Fluency in interacting with internal staff at all levels, including upper-level management, to influence decision-making with managing cross-functional teams.
- Highly developed skill sets related to effectively organizing, planning, leading, and managing projects and teams.
- Being comfortable in the role of leader and manager, especially in uncertain or tough times.
