How will your role impact First Command?
First Command was founded in 1958 by a retired military officer who was passionate about helping service members and their families strengthen their financial security. The Wealth Solutions team shares this passion for our mission by leading the financial product solutions and platforms offered through the coaching relationship with our clients.
As part of the enterprise Wealth Solutions team, the Insurance & Annuities Product Director for financial products is responsible for the strategic direction, performance, and lifecycle management of First Command’s life, long‑term care (LTC), disability insurance, and annuity product portfolio. The role partners closely with industry platform providers as well as our financial product partners to ensure seamless delivery for financial advisors and clients.
The Insurance & Annuities Product Director serves as the subject matter expert on product design, pricing, regulatory requirements, and competitive positioning to ensure First Command offers compelling, compliant, and profitable investment product solutions.This individual collaborates extensively with our digital product team as well as legal, compliance, supervision, operations, risk, finance, marketing, training, and field leadership to maintain and enhance our product portfolio.
What will you be doing?
- Partner with senior leadership to develop and manage product strategies, value propositions, and roadmaps for life insurance, LTC, disability, and annuity products.
- Lead analysis to identify customer needs, competitive dynamics, trends, and regulatory impacts.
- Recommend enhancements, new products, or rationalization opportunities to optimize the portfolio.
- Monitor product profitability, carrier service, compensation, utilization, and customer segmentation.
- Implement actions to improve product profitability, cross-sell performance, and client retention.
- Manage relationships and assist in negotiating pricing and economics with strategic product and platform partners; oversee product partner due diligence, SLAs, and performance scorecards.
- Ensure offerings comply with applicable industry regulations, rules and firm policies.
- Maintain product governance artifacts (business cases, policies, and supervisory procedures).
- Drive product changes from concept through implementation, including business case development, requirements, pilot testing, rollout, and training.
- Partner closely with Marketing, Sales, Training, Operations, IT, Data/Reporting, Legal, Compliance, Field Supervision, and Digital/Experience teams to ensure alignment quality and best practices.
- Serve as the annuity and insurance product SME for advisor facing teams; provide tools, sales narratives, positioning guidance, and product training.
- Deliver timely communications to the field on changes, enhancements, and product updates.
- Maintain product documentation, procedures, fact sheets, and sales/marketing materials.
- Work with field leadership, financial advisors and internal partners to ensure alignment with customer needs and field feedback.
- Proactively engage CX and UX research teams to gather client and advisor feedback on satisfaction and experience; translate insights into backlog and roadmap priorities.
- Map and maintain knowledge of key client and advisor journeys across programs and platforms.
- Analyze industry, carrier, competitor, and platform trends; translate insights, risks, and opportunities into recommendations for product innovation and differentiation.
- Engage with outside consultants, peer groups, industry events, etc., to ensure best practices.
- Coordinate with adjacent product leaders (e.g., investment & banking solutions) to deliver integrated wealth strategies where appropriate.
- Travel may be required up to 15% for field engagement, partner meetings, and industry events.
What skills/qualifications do you need?
Required
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Economics, or related field.
- 10+ years of experience in the financial services industry with depth in insurance, annuities, complex financial planning, and the deployment of new products.
- Demonstrated knowledge of insurance & annuity platforms (Hexure, iPipeline, FIDx, Luma, etc.)
- Experience with annuity products including Fixed, Variable, Indexed, Immediate & Deferred.
- Experience with insurance products including Term, Whole, Universal, Variable, Indexed & LTC.
- Strong understanding of insurance regulatory frameworks, suitability standards, product design principles, and carrier operations.
- Demonstrated financial acumen, including experience with pricing models and profitability analysis.
- Exceptional communication, analytical, and stakeholder collaboration and management skills.
Preferred
- Master’s degree or MBA
- Series 6 & 63 or 66
- Texas Life & Health License
- CLU, LACP, ChFC, CIMA (or comparable industry designations)
- Experience developing and delivering advisor training for product sales and service delivery.
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