Data Scientist

At Banner Life Insurance Company, we lead with heart and ambition. Every day, we transform purpose into progress, guided by our unwavering commitment to be better for our customers, clients, and communities, not just today but long-term as well. Our people are the driving force behind everything we achieve. Their passion, purpose, and pursuit of innovation empower us to deliver cutting-edge solutions that support those we serve, ensuring we are here for you, here for good and striving for better.

We're a forward-thinking company energized by our work and how we show up for one another. Our culture is built on meaningful impact and genuine enjoyment, because we believe great work and great experiences should go hand in hand.

By offering career development opportunities, comprehensive benefits, and programs that support your wellbeing, we help you thrive personally and professionally. We are here for you, here for good and here for better.

We are seeking a Data Scientist to build a next-generation predictive analytics capability for life insurance experience. This role will focus on developing a continuous modeling and insight generation system that monitors experience data, detects emerging trends, and surfaces actionable signals across areas such as mortality, lapse, and other in-force dynamics.

You will design and automate a suite of predictive models that run regularly against updated data, evaluate changes in experience, and identify meaningful shifts before they are visible through traditional analysis. These structured insights will serve as a core input into a broader AI-driven ecosystem that generates automated reporting, narrative explanations, and decision support for stakeholders across the organization.

This is a hands-on, build-oriented role focused on creating systems - not one-off models - that continuously learn from data and improve how experience is understood and managed.

Work on complicated Data Science projects and workstreams that drive business value and align with KPI's.
• Support Data Science's efforts to maintain strong working relationships with adjacent teams such as Product Performance, Underwriting, and Operations.
• Collaborate with the Experience Study team on special projects.
• Test and utilize new technologies and platforms, especially AI models and coding assistants, to accelerate the pace of analytics and expand the team's capabilities.
• Demonstrate a strong commitment to ongoing career learning and development.
• Solve various Data Science problems, identifying suitable techniques and facilitating comprehension of key results.
• Carry out suitable ML model testing to ensure out of sample and out of time performance.
• Develop random holdout and model monitoring capabilities to track ongoing performance.
• Leverage the Data Warehouse to incorporate new dimensions into modeling to drive new insights and identify data limitations in our existing processes.
• Partner with IT to deploy solutions fast and efficiently and participate in API creation and the deployment of Data Science solutions for use by adjacent teams.
• Learn about traditional underwriting practices and evaluate new potential underwriting requirements.
  Utilize experimental design (e.g., "A-B testing") to validate findings or evaluate hypotheses by comparing results from different test populations in marketing, operations and other areas.
  Evaluate and leverage new tools and platforms for faster computation, deeper analysis and appropriate usage of visualization to communicate key insights.
• Other duties as assigned.
• Learn to translate complex business problems into an analytical context.
• Ensure the timely delivery of objectives related to your projects, communicating early and often regarding any obstacles that arise.
• Learn to work with the Actuarial Product Performance team to ensure Actuarially sound solutions that achieve mortality and profitability targets.
• Learn to partner with IT to ensure successful deployment of ML solutions into the existing Horizon Underwriting architecture.
• Develop an understanding of business and learn to identify relevant metrics for overall projects to show benefits, such as improvements to Exam-free or APS-free rates, cycle times, or placement.

Education

Graduate degree (Masters or PhD) in a quantitative discipline, especially Mathematics/Statistics/Data Science/Actuarial Science.

Experience/Knowledge

Experience of 2+ years for Master degree holders (1+ years for PhD holders) experience solving challenging data science problems in a business environment

Basic understanding of life insurance and underwriting

Completion of any actuarial exams is a plus, but not required

Skills

Expert in statistical data analysis and modeling

Expert in machine learning techniques and algorithms

Accomplished in analyzing large, complex, multi-dimensional datasets

Accomplished in use of statistical analysis environments, especially Python; R also helpful

Experience with BI/visualization tools, especially Tableau (or similar)

Familiarity with cloud computing environments

Ability to use SQL to query, merge, and transform data to support complex modeling needs

Ability to use Microsoft Office

Basic understanding of and familiarity with behavioral economics

Good communication and presentation skills, both written and oral

Strong organization and documentation skills

"Self starting" with internal motivation and initiative

Demonstrates the following scientist qualities: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance, and fairness

What's in it for you?

The expected hiring compensation range for this position is $109,900 - $140,000 annually. This position will be a remote opportunity, working on EST .

The total compensation package for this position may include other elements, such as a sign-on bonus, long term incentives, and annual bonuses. This role is eligible to participate in the Annual Incentive Plan. The current target payment for the position is 20% of base salary, modified for corporate and individual performance. Bonuses are pro-rated based on start date. This role has 20 vacation days and 10 sick days that are accrued on a bi-weekly basis. Employees also have 9 paid holidays throughout the calendar year .

We have a competitive compensation and benefits package focused on your overall wellbeing. Employee benefits include health, life, and dental insurance; 401K with company match up to 6% as well as a pension package; generous time off; and wellbeing initiatives throughout the year (we like doing fun stuff). We're big on professional development and we'll support and mentor you in your career progression and expect you to help us pay it forward by helping us develop tomorrow's leaders and growth-focused professionals. We value our teams and our communities and believe in giving back. Enjoy time off to volunteer for those causes that matter most to you!

If hired, employee will be in an "at-will position" and the Company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, Company or individual department/team performance, and market factors. The Company reserves the right to change benefits plans at any time.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.