Catastrophe Modeling Jobs in Phoenix, AZ (NOW HIRING)

Why USAA?

At USAA, our mission is to empower our members to achieve financial security through highly competitive products, exceptional service and trusted advice. We seek to be the #1 choice for the military community and their families.

Embrace a fulfilling career at USAA, where our core values – honesty, integrity, loyalty and service – define how we treat each other and our members. Be part of what truly makes us special and impactful.

We are proud to support active-duty military spouses. USAA roles may offer remote or hybrid flexibility for active-duty military spouses consistent with applicable policy and business needs.

The Opportunity

We are seeking a credentialed Actuary Lead to join the Climate Risk and Exposure Analytics team at USAA. This role serves as the analytical and thought leader for USAA's Concentration of Risk framework, translating catastrophe risk, exposure concentration, growth trends, and capital impacts into actionable business strategies that balance member service, profitability, and association-level risk management.  It requires proactive identification, quantification, and management of concentrations of risk through innovative analytics, effective business partnerships, and sound risk governance.  The ideal candidate combines catastrophe risk expertise, actuarial rigor, innovation, business partnership and communication, and executive influence to help ensure that growth occurs in a way that is sustainable, profitable, and aligned with USAA's risk appetite, while also keeping USAA’s mission to be the provider of choice for the military community in focus throughout this work.   In many ways, this role seeks to find the optimal balance between multiple objectives in service of both USAA and its membership.

This role is remote eligible in the continental U.S. with occasional business travel. However, individuals residing within a 60-mile radius of a USAA office will be expected to work on-site four days per week based in one of the following locations: San Antonio, TX, Plano, TX, Phoenix, AZ, Colorado Springs, CO, Charlotte, NC, or Tampa, FL. Relocation assistance is not available for this position.

What you'll do:

• Apply deep and broad actuarial knowledge to identify, define, and design solutions to complex problems with ambiguous requirements (e.g., end-to-end design of rate level indications process for a new product; independently shapes and transforms all aspects of machine learning and AI for a product: (data selection, model selection, stakeholder communications, performance monitoring, etc.); independently run catastrophe models for advanced ad-hoc analyses; provides guidance and training to peers for running and validating the catastrophe models; enhances current methodologies to tailor catastrophe model results to better represent USAA's risk; designs and performs broad and complex actuarial analyses that produces actionable insights for company-level decision-making designs reserving methodology and technical platform for new product.
• Utilize advanced actuarial, mathematical, or statistical techniques to augment actuarial work product, methodologies, and procedures.
• Lead special actuarial projects, such as the development of new pricing methodologies or reporting tools to impact LOB-level initiatives.
• Provide thought and/or technical expertise on complex topics and influences key stakeholders on business decisions.
• Lead cross-functional actuarial initiatives.
• Strategically partner with IT to influence the design, alignment, and implementation of technical business standards.
• Manage USAA vendor relationship(s).
• Assist the business unit by translating strategic objectives into tactical solutions.
• Maintain current knowledge of market trends and emerging risks and proactively develop strategies, policies, and processes to address them.
• Develop written communication and presentations that effectively convey data-driven solutions to broad audiences including cross-functional executive leadership.
• Ensure risks associated with business activities are effectively identified, measured, monitored, and controlled in accordance with risk and compliance policies and procedures.

Additional Core Responsibilities

Own the Concentration of Risk (CoR) Framework

• Lead ongoing development, maintenance, and governance of the CoR framework.
• Evaluate and enhance concentration metrics, thresholds, mitigators, and risk indicators.
• Ensure framework remains aligned with association's catastrophe risk appetite, profitability objectives, and capital management strategy.

Drive Analytics & Innovation

• Develop new methods for identifying emerging geographic and peril-specific concentrations.
• Analyze optimal book-shaping trade-offs by understanding high risk drivers and working to balance “the member” vs. “the membership”.
• Explore predictive applications that improve early warning detection and identification of hidden concentrations.
• Continuously challenge assumptions, model limitations, and existing methodologies in contributing to the ideal goal of roof-top determination of risk acceptability and projected rate health on request of a quote.
• Partner with catastrophe modeling and climate science teams to incorporate evolving views of risk.

Influence Business Decisions

• Present concentration risk findings to State Managers ("Go To Market") and relevant senior executives (including Pricing and Underwriting).
• Translate complex catastrophe analytics into actionable business recommendations.
• Quantify tradeoffs among growth, profitability, member service, and risk exposure, working to communicate this balance in ways that are compelling to multiple stakeholders and decision-makers.

Lead Cross-Functional Risk Mitigation

• Partner with Pricing, Underwriting, Competitive Intelligence, and Go-To-Market teams to evaluate mitigation options.
• Find ways to leverage analytics for the encouragement of member/property resilience.
• Assess expected impacts of rate actions, underwriting actions, underwriting exceptions, growth controls, and alternative strategies.
• Support decision-making on action plans versus risk acceptance proposals.

Govern Enterprise Concentration Risk

• Monitor enterprise concentration trends and emerging risk concentrations.
• Maintain reporting for risk indicators, tail-list counties, counties that breach countrywide thresholds, and early warning counties.
• Support relevant governance forums with analytical insights and recommendations.

What you have:

• Bachelor's degree; OR 4 years of relevant education and/or experience.
• 8 years of Actuarial or analytical business experience + Associate of the Casualty Actuarial Society (ACAS) Credential held for 3 years; OR 6 years of Actuarial or analytical business experience + Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society (FCAS) Credential.
• Demonstrated expertise with relevant actuarial, mathematical, and statistical techniques and approaches used to support fact-based decision-making.
• Advanced knowledge of data analysis tools, data visualization, developing analysis queries and procedures in Python, R, SQL, SAS, BI tools or other analysis software, and relevant industry data & methods and ability to connect external insights to business problems.
• Demonstrated experience communicating complex solutions and analysis to cross-functional audiences, including executive leadership.

What sets you apart:

Technical Excellence

• FCAS, ACAS with substantial post-credential experience, or equivalent actuarial expertise.
• Deep understanding of property insurance risk drivers and catastrophe exposure management.
• Experience with catastrophe models, capital management, profitability analytics, or enterprise risk management.
• Strong statistical and predictive modeling capabilities.
• Ability to evaluate complex analytical problems with incomplete or evolving information.

Innovation & Strategic Thinking

• Demonstrated ability to design new analytical frameworks rather than simply maintain existing processes.
• Experience challenging conventional approaches and introducing innovative solutions.
• Curiosity to explore emerging catastrophe, climate, geographic, and underwriting risk signals.
• Ability to connect technical concepts to strategic business outcomes.

Business Partnership & Influence

• Proven ability to influence decisions across diverse stakeholder groups without direct authority.
• Experience partnering with underwriting, product, pricing, finance, risk, and executive leadership teams.
• Strong facilitation and negotiation skills.
• Ability to balance analytical rigor with practical business considerations.

Communication & Leadership

• Exceptional executive communication skills.
• Ability to simplify highly technical concepts for non-technical audiences.
• Experience presenting recommendations to senior leadership and governance committees.
• Demonstrated ability to lead complex cross-functional initiatives.

Nice-to-Have Qualifications

• Capital allocation or economic capital experience.
• Geographic/spatial analytics experience.
• Climate risk analytics exposure.
• Experience leading enterprise risk governance initiatives.
• US military experience gained through military service or gained as a military spouse / domestic partner
   

Compensation range: The salary range for this position is: $164,780 - $314,960.

USAA does not provide visa sponsorship for this role. Please do not apply for this role if at any time (now or in the future) you will need immigration support (i.e., H-1B, TN, STEM OPT Training Plans, etc.).

Compensation: USAA has an effective process for assessing market data and establishing ranges to ensure we remain competitive. You are paid within the salary range based on your experience and market data of the position. The actual salary for this role may vary by location.

Employees may be eligible for pay incentives based on overall corporate and individual performance and at the discretion of the USAA Board of Directors.

The above description reflects the details considered necessary to describe the principal functions of the job and should not be construed as a detailed description of all the work requirements that may be performed in the job.

Benefits: At USAA our employees enjoy best-in-class benefits to support their physical, financial, and emotional wellness. These benefits include comprehensive medical, dental and vision plans, 401(k), pension, life insurance, parental benefits, adoption assistance, paid time off program with paid holidays plus 16 paid volunteer hours, and various wellness programs. Additionally, our career path planning and continuing education assists employees with their professional goals.

For more details on our outstanding benefits, visit our benefits page on USAAjobs.com.

Applications for this position are accepted on an ongoing basis, this posting will remain open until the position is filled. Thus, interested candidates are encouraged to apply the same day they view this posting.

USAA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.