Product Owner - New Business

Product Owner - New Business

Salary Range $74,250.00 - $100,000.00 Salary/year Position Type Full Time

Description

PRODUCT OWNER - NEW BUSINESS (Full Time, Salary, Exempt) Looking to join a growing company dedicated to helping others? We offer that, plus competitive salaries, a culture of learning, and a fast-paced environment. This is a hybrid position with 3 days in-office. Join our team to help make a difference in the lives of others!

About Continental General:

The Continental General family of companies has provided insurance, including life and long-term care policies, to individuals and groups for over 30 years, and currently supports over 200,000 policyholders. Both our insurance company, Continental General Insurance Company, and our third-party administrator, Continental General Services, are committed to the continuous development of our infrastructure, processes, and people. The group is actively growing through expansion of both its insurance portfolio and its administrative services. With each opportunity, we take a collaborative approach to address challenges and provide unique solutions.

Position Summary:

Continental General is seeking a highly skilled Agile Product Owner to join our New Business & Underwriting domain team on our Sales Solutions value stream supporting our Third-Party Administration (TPA) organization. The Product Owner maximizes business value delivered by the team by owning the domain backlog, defining clear requirements, and ensuring high-quality, compliant outcomes. This role translates complex business needs into development-ready work, manages cross-team/vendor dependencies, and maintains operational continuity through disciplined delivery practices.

Domain Focus:

In this role, you will leverage deep expertise in insurance products, new business and underwriting concepts, and agile delivery to help lead and support new business initiatives. Support including but not limited to new carrier/client product launches (eApplication/new application submission set up), as well as continuous improvement including state expansions, application workflow changes, and new distribution methods. As the owner of a focused domain within a value stream, you will translate business requirements into clear, testable work, manage dependencies across vendors and internal teams, and ensure operational readiness for production release.

Authority and Accountability:

• Final decision maker for priority and sequencing of the New Business domain backlog.
• Accountable for requirements quality and readiness (Definition of Ready) before work enters delivery.
• Accepts delivered work and confirms it meets agreed acceptance criteria, compliance, and operational expectations prior to release.
• Owns clear traceability from business requirements to stories, tests/validation evidence, and release notes.
• Mentor, guide, and when applicable supervise BA's and junior members on domain team.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategy, Roadmap, and Backlog Ownership
  • Clearly articulate and communicate the new business roadmap (implementations, releases, launch sequencing) to the delivery team, ensuring alignment to organizational strategy and customer commitments.
  • Own and lead prioritization of the New Business backlog; facilitate ongoing refinement to ensure work is clear, testable, and properly sized.
  • Break down initiatives into epics, features, and user stories with clear acceptance criteria, including end-to-end (E2E) and operational readiness requirements.
  • Act as the primary point of contact for requirements, scope, tradeoffs, and readiness decisions related to new business onboarding.
  • Review, accept, or reject completed work based on acceptance criteria and "in good order" launch standards.
  • Participate in daily flow reviews and actively remove blockers to maintain throughput and predictable delivery.
• Delivery Execution and Acceptance
  • Serve as the primary requirements contact for the value stream and delivery teams; clarify scope, intent, and priority in real time.
  • Review and accept/reject completed work based on acceptance criteria and end to end product expectations.
  • Participate in daily flow reviews and Agile/Kanban ceremonies to remove blockers, maintain throughput, and improve predictability.
  • Coordinate E2E/UAT readiness: confirm test scenarios, required evidence, and go live criteria with stakeholders.
• Stakeholder, Customer, and Compliance Management
  • Communicate progress, risks, decisions, and changes transparently to stakeholders at all levels; escalate early with clear asks and options.
  • Ensure requirements and delivery align to regulatory requirements, industry standards, and internal policies; maintain awareness of applicable state/federal regulations.
  • Drive customer/agent experience improvements by preventing rework (e.g., signed document mismatches, packet quality issues) through upstream clarity and controls.
• Tracking, Knowledge Management, and Operating Cadence
  • Enforce hygiene for Jira and Confluence: accurate statuses, clear acceptance criteria, decision logs, and linked artifacts.
  • Maintain a single source of truth for requirements and decisions; ensure audit trail is complete and easy to follow.
  • Publish release notes and testing scope for each deployment; confirm what changed and what must be validated.
• Continuous Improvement and Performance
  • Continuously improve delivery by analyzing cycle time, rework, and defect patterns; implement process improvements with business and technology leads.
  • Identify opportunities for automation/AI to improve speed, quality, and documentation; drive initiatives through completion.

Qualifications

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Accounting, Actuarial Science, Computer Science, or related field (or the equivalent years of education and experience required).
• 5+ years in insurance (life/annuity/LTC or related) and/or TPA operations; Product Owner or similar experience strongly preferred.
• Working knowledge of new business and underwriting practices, ACORD standards, and policy administration systems required.
• Hands on experience in Agile/Kanban environments (flow metrics, WIP limits, continuous delivery).
• Experience coordinating vendor deliverables/releases and supporting E2E/UAT readiness and defect triage.
• Proficiency with Jira and Confluence for work tracking and documentation; experience with process documentation tools (Miro, Visio, Lucidchart, etc.)

• Leadership and Communication
  • Ability to lead and influence cross functional teams without direct authority.
  • Clear, candid written and verbal communication; able to explain complex topics to technical and non technical audiences.
  • Strong stakeholder management skills; able to set expectations, build trust, and drive timely decisions.
• Analytical and Delivery Skills
  • Strong analytical mindset with focus on measurable business outcomes and customer impact.
  • Ability to translate insurance concepts and regulatory requirements into actionable delivery work items.
  • Comfort working with configuration heavy platforms and data mapping (e.g., inbound application/ACORD data, outbound extracts/reporting, forms/correspondence).

Definitions:

• Definition of Ready (DoR)
  • Business objective and scope clearly stated; success metrics defined where applicable.
  • Business rules and state/product variations documented.
  • Data impacts identified (inbound forms/ACORD fields, outbound extracts/reporting, data tags/forms impacts as applicable).
  • Acceptance criteria and test approach documented (unit/UAT/E2E expectations).
  • Dependencies and risks identified with owners.
• Definition of Done (DoD)
  • Acceptance criteria met and validated; evidence captured. (screenshots/logs/test results as appropriate).
  • Documentation updated (Confluence/runbook/packet matrix/requirements artifacts).
  • Traceability maintained (requirement, story, validation, release).
  • Operational readiness confirmed for production (monitoring/notifications, support handoff, rollback considerations where applicable).

Success Metrics (Examples)

• Reduction in