Description

Who are we?

Western National Insurance Group is a private mutual insurance company with over 120 years of experience serving customers' property-and-casualty insurance needs in the Midwestern, Northwestern, and Southwestern United States. Known as “The Relationship Company®,” we define success as a measure of the relationships we’ve built over time. In everything that we do, we know that delivering a friendly and helpful interaction makes for a better experience for everyone involved. That’s the power of “nice”. At Western National, nice is something we work to bring to every person and organization with whom we partner and serve.

Does this opportunity interest you?

Western National is seeking a Business Analyst II to join our team! 

The individual in this role will have the opportunity to ensure collaborative execution of business analysis across key phases of the requirements lifecycle for a product workstream or project. This individual will use their IT and property-and-casualty insurance industry experience for initiatives that will build out and mature our Guidewire PolicyCenter administration system and our agent, policyholder, and customer experience journeys.

What are the responsibilities and opportunities of this role?

• Represents and supports our personal lines business unit by acting as a liaison between the business unit, product owner, and IT Department for initiative requests.
• Participates in work refinement and estimation processes with personal lines product team.
• Participates in troubleshooting, issue reporting, resolution, and communication of urgent production issues.
• Works with product and change control teams to ensure quality deliverables that provide customer value.
• Creates and maintains documentation that the personal lines product team or company has defined as important (e.g., support processes, team processes, system documentation).
• Flexes to non-core responsibilities as needed to ensure timely work delivery to the customer (e.g., testing, road mapping, directing deployment).
• Collaborates with personal lines product team to execute requirement activities for business process and software implementation initiatives of mixed impact and risk. 
• Applies, acquires, and builds upon a core toolkit of intermediate business analyst skills and techniques.
• Demonstrates that business analyst competencies and skill sets align with enhancing and improving value to existing and new applications. 
• Executes competence in business analyst best practices as defined in the requirements lifecycle with moderate guidance from others. 
• Applies acquired knowledge to identify and troubleshoot root-cause issues and resolve core problems within a defined domain that affects business processes or applications. 
• Identifies and executes opportunities for improvement of processes and best practices at personal lines product team level and influences team to implement process improvement.
• Plans and conducts research, analyzes product needs, and tabulates findings that confirm requirements at a product team level.
• Contributes to resolving problems and / or improving processes at the personal lines product team level.
• Identifies and executes opportunities to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of team-level business processes and applications and uses data and persuasion to influence change.
• Understands personal lines product team level development best practices, standards, policies, and possible implications on work activities.
• Understands the relationship between problem components. 
• Utilizes intermediate knowledge, experience, and available resources to find a wide range of solutions.
• Contributes to resolve problems and / or improve processes at the personal lines product team level.
• Consistently acts according to our customer experience standards, including responding quickly, maintaining a positive attitude, building rapport, demonstrating empathy, managing the customer’s expectations, using the proper communication channel for the situation, and taking ownership to ensure the customer’s issue is resolved.
• Performs other duties and projects as assigned.

Requirements

What are the must-have qualifications for a candidate?

• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills when dealing with ambiguity.
• Ability to work independently and carry out assignments to completion.
• Strong attention to detail. 
• Good negotiation skills.
• Ability to lead change with positive influence on people and processes.
• Acts as team player with the ability to effectively collaborate with others.
• Inquisitive with a strong ability and desire for continuous learning.
• Highly organized with the ability to multitask. 
• Proficiency using various computer equipment and Microsoft 365 software applications (e.g., Excel, Word, PowerPoint).
• Proficiency using various communication and collaboration tools (e.g., JIRA, Confluence, SharePoint, Teams, Mural).
• Competent understanding of domain / context support technologies, systems, and processes.
• Working knowledge to read and understand scripting and coding languages and a basic ability to write simple scripts.
• Holds a basic knowledge executing SQL queries and / or generating reports from structured data sets, and holds a working knowledge of databases, data models, and related constructs.
• Competency in Agile and various development methodologies, tools, and frameworks.
• Bachelor’s degree preferred in related field; experience in lieu of degree is acceptable.

What will our ideal candidate have?

• Demonstrated intermediate organizational and prioritization skills.
• Ability to accomplish multiple priorities of low-to-average impact and risk within a specified timeframe.
• Demonstrated ability to consistently communicate clearly and effectively both verbally and in writing with technical and non-technical audiences.
• At least three years of experience in an IT or related role. 
• At least two years of business analyst experience with a proven track record of performing business analysis on a range of projects. 
• Basic business analyst training and certification equivalent to Entry Certificate in Business Analysis (ECBA) or Certification of Capability in Business Analysis (CCBA). 
• Property-and-casualty insurance industry experience or education is preferred. 
• Previous experience with enterprise policy administration management, Guidewire, or other modern package policy, claims, or billing administration systems initiatives.

Compensation overview

The targeted hiring range for this role is $80,100 - $97,900, annually. However, the base pay offered may vary depending on the job-related knowledge, skills, credentials, and experience of each candidate as well as other factors such as the scope and location of the role. Candidates looking for compensation outside of the posted range are encouraged to apply and will be considered based on their individual qualifications and/or may be considered for other positions.

Culture and Total Rewards

Western National has long been known as “The Relationship Company®” and caring for our employees is part of that relationship commitment. We value connectiveness, empowerment, and accountability, and we believe that our employees are our biggest asset. 

Currently ranked as the 41st largest private company by revenue in Minnesota (Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal), Western National has earned accolades year-over-year as an employer of choice and garnered multiple awards for wellness in the workplace. Western National was also named a Star Tribune Top Workplace in 2021, 2022, and 2023. In addition, the Group is consistently recognized as a Ward’s 50 property-and-casualty insurance company for its outstanding financial results.

Western National offers full-time employees a significant Total Rewards Package, including:

• Medical insurance plan options and other standard employee benefits, including dental insurance, vision benefits, life insurance, disability insurance, and more!
• Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• 401(k) Plan (participants are eligible for 100% matching on the first 6% of their contributions)
• Wellbeing Program, including onsite fitness studio
• Paid Time Off – including holiday, vacation, and volunteer
• 100% company-paid tuition reimbursement for approved job-relevant coursework and access to The Institutes (Risk and insurance education)
• Paid parental leave
• Bonus opportunities

Western National believes in supporting balance between work and life by providing a flexible work environment, which includes a variety of hybrid and remote work arrangements designed to balance individual, job, department, and company needs.

Western National provides employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.