Lead Associate

The Business

The Health & Benefits (‘H&B’) business provides strategy and design consulting, plan management service and support, broking and administration across the full spectrum of health, wellbeing and other group benefit programs, including medical, dental, disability, life, voluntary benefits and other coverage. Our reach extends from small/mid-market clients to large-market and multinational clients, across the full geographic footprint of the Company, and to most industries. We can address our clients’ needs in more than 160 countries.

The Role

• Lead Associate within Health & Benefits Line of Business at Willis Towers Watson US LLC in New York, NY. 

• Play an active role on multiple clients on varying complexity to gain new insights from different client profiles/roles.

• Demonstrate knowledge of clients’ business issues and applies Health & Benefits (H&B) knowledge to provide input on possible strategies. 

• Leverage intermediate knowledge of key ancillary benefits, financial and placement concepts in client conversations and presentations. 

• Apply understanding of interaction between financial and plan management activities on cost, employee impact, and support needs.

• Day-to-day involvement with clients’ vendor management activities, resolve claims and administrative issues with vendors on behalf of clients. 

• Address more complex client questions on a variety of H&B topics and escalate to senior colleagues when needed.

• Create and manage detailed project plans, budgets and/or efficiencies, and timelines.

• Draft initial client deliverables in collaboration with client leads and COE colleagues.

• Provide specific direction to junior colleagues on work product and conduct excellence reviews on the work.

• Partner with communities of expertise (COE) teams to manage client deadlines and deliverables. 

• Develop intermediate/advanced knowledge of one to two specialized benefit programs, e.g., absence/disability management, Health, Equity and Wellbeing (HEW) and voluntary benefits. 

• Coordinate and lead meetings/calls with internal team and/or carrier/vendor partners. 

• Engage regularly with clients and carrier/vendors to build relationships. 

• Salary range = $91,000 to $135,000/yr

The Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree (U.S. or foreign equivalent) in Actuarial Science, Mathematics or a related field

• Two (2) years of experience in a related Benefits Analyst role.

• Prior experience engaging in vendor negotiations by analyzing renewal packages and negotiating discounted pricing for clients.

• Prior experience conducting healthcare benefit plan strategy and design.
• Prior experience utilizing healthcare plan pricing tools, metrics and strategies to perform financial analyses, including developing pricing and employee contribution strategies, modeling plan design alternatives and calculating Incurred but Not Reported (IBNR) claim reserves.
• Prior experience constructing and reviewing pricing and valuation models for reasonableness, accuracy and compliance with modeling standards.
• Prior experience conducting benchmarking studies and providing value added analyses and summaries.
• Prior experience analyzing the impact of regulatory changes, such as Affordable Care Act, on healthcare, pension or retirement plans, such as changes in tax deductibility of healthcare plan, changes in government mandated level of minimum healthcare coverage, or cost-effectiveness of discounting pre-65 retiree medical coverage and allowing pre-65 retirees to purchase healthcare plans through the Exchange.
• Prior experience contributing to private exchange implementation and renewal, by conducting financial projections, and assisting in project execution, benefits administration, and benefits communications. 
• Prior experience assisting in the development of actuarial tools and approaches. 
• Must have exam progress towards designation as an Associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA).