The posting
Title: Program Reserving Actuary
Location: San Jose, CA / Austin, TX / Dallas, TX / Morristown, NJ (Hybrid)
Reporting to: Actuarial Manager, Reserving
Open to Relocation? We’ve Got You Covered:
This role is open to candidates willing to relocate to one of our hub locations. Hippo offers relocation assistance to support your move, so you can focus on doing impactful work—not the logistics of getting here.
About Hippo:
Hippo was built on a promise: make homeownership effortless. Nearly a decade later, that mission still drives us. We use technology and data to help our customers stay ahead of problems and protect what matters most.
Today, that same tech-native approach powers our work beyond homeowners. Hippo operates as a diversified carrier platform, partnering with MGAs to deliver tailored program solutions that help them grow and deliver better customer experiences. Behind that work is a team that values ownership, curiosity, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
If you're energized by building what's next, we'd love to meet you.
About This Role:
We are seeking a technically strong, detail-oriented actuary to support our reserving work across our portfolio of third-party P&C programs, including a strong focus on casualty. You will support core pieces of the quarterly and monthly reserving cycle, from the data behind our analyses to rolling forward assumptions and delivering review-ready work for peer review. The ideal candidate is a casualty reserving actuary with strong technical and data skills who can independently obtain, validate, transform, and analyze the data used in reserving studies.
About You:
You’re an ACAS-credentialed reserving actuary, working toward FCAS, who has worked across several P&C lines with a strong foundation in casualty. You make sound reserving recommendations on thin or imperfect data, using benchmarks, judgment, and a clear statement of your assumptions. You build tools, reconciliations, and documentation that make reserving consistent across a growing portfolio, and you keep them simple enough to maintain. You explain actuarial conclusions in plain terms to actuaries, finance, claims, underwriters, and program partners. You use SQL, Python, GitHub, and AI tools to work faster, and you collaborate effectively with peers and contribute to a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
What You’ll Do:
- Perform quarterly reserve reviews across program tiers, including deep dives on casualty special programs: independently evaluate reserve adequacy, roll forward actuarial assumptions (LDFs, ELRs, benchmarks, method weights), and prepare well-documented recommendations for actuarial management review
- Investigate reserve movements, claims trends, and data anomalies, and clearly communicate findings and recommendations to actuarial leadership
- Work with detailed claims, premium, exposure, financial, and reinsurance datasets to support reserving analyses, and partner with data and engineering teams to improve data quality and accessibility
- Support data reconciliation and forensic analysis to identify claims data quality issues, and help standardize definitions across partner programs (including the claim dictionary) by mapping and aggregating program data into consistent structures
- Support the development of large loss thresholds for each partner program and a broader large loss strategy that enables reserve analyses on an excluding-large-loss basis
- Support monthly close: lag and paid estimates, loss flux, ultimate and IBNR allocation, and AY/TY loss ratio review
- Support the review of new and existing insurance programs, including setting up templates for newly onboarded programs and reducing the backlog of programs without a recent review
- Contribute analysis and exhibits for reserve committee and senior management materials, and communicate loss ratio performance and emerging issues to Pricing, Underwriting, Reinsurance, Claims, and Finance
- Maintain Schedule P, ULAE/AO, and reinsurance treaty workbooks, and support the annual, quarterly, and monthly financial reporting processes across GAAP and STAT entities
- Support SOX control documentation, audit walkthroughs, and requests from the signing actuary
- Support reserve risk (Mack/ODP CoV) calculations and the handoff to capital modeling
- Identify and implement governance and automation improvements that keep reserving reviews and workflows consistent, repeatable, and well controlled
- Opportunity to innovate reserving models: model building, refitting, or calibration
Must Haves:
- Bachelor's degree in Actuarial Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, or a related field
- ACAS with robust casualty reserving experience; progress toward FCAS preferred
- 4+ years of actuarial experience with broad reserving exposure across multiple lines and sound judgment on limited or unstructured data
- Proficiency in SQL and Python to independently source, validate, reconcile, and analyze large datasets; strong Excel skills
- Experience with cloud data warehouses and curated analytical datasets (BigQuery and GitHub preferred); familiarity with layered architectures (e.g., bronze/silver/gold) is a plus
- Ability to trace results from underlying claim and financial transactions through reserve exhibits and final reporting
- Good understanding of accounting standards (e.g., US GAAP, US STAT)
- Ability to explain actuarial concepts clearly to actuarial and non-actuarial audiences, including senior leadership
- Project management skills and ability to deliver under tight timelines; collaborative, with a commitment to continuous learning
Nice to Haves:
- Prior program, fronting, or reinsurance experience
- Experience with SQL-based data transformation tools (e.g., dbt)
- Experience with SOX controls or audit support for reserving processes
- Experience using AI tools to speed up actuarial and data work
The SF Bay Area (and New Jersey) base pay range for this role is $115,000- $155,000. Exact compensation may vary based on several job-related factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to: skill set, experience, education/training, location, business needs and market demands.
Benefits and Perks:
Hippo treats its team members with the same level of dedication and care as we do our customers, which is why we’re fortunate to provide all of our Hippos with:
- Relocation Assistance - Support available for qualified candidates relocating to one of our hub locations
- Healthy Hippos Benefits - Multiple medical plans to choose from and 100% employer covered dental & vision plans for our team members and their families. We also offer a 401(k)-retirement plan, short & long-term disability, employer-paid life insurance, Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) for health and dependent care, and an Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
- Equity - This position is eligible for equity compensation
- Training and Career Growth - Training and internal career growth opportunities
- Flexible Time Off - You know when and how you should recharge
- Little Hippos Program - We offer 12 weeks of parental leave for primary and secondary caregivers
- Hippo Habitat - Snacks and drinks available and catered lunches for onsite employees
Hippo is an equal opportunity employer, and we are committed to building a team culture that celebrates diversity and inclusion.
Hippo’s applicants are considered solely based on their qualifications, without regard to an applicant’s disability or need for accommodation. Any Hippo applicant who requires reasonable accommodations during the application process should contact the Hippo’s People Team to make the need for an accommodation known.
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