Account Manager - Protection

This job is with Canada Life UK, an inclusive employer and a member of myGwork – the largest global platform for the LGBTQ+ business community. Canada Life UK looks after the retirement, investment and protection needs of individuals, families and companies. We help to build better futures for our customers, our intermediaries and our employees by operating as a modern, agile and welcoming organisation. Part of our parent company Great-West Lifeco, Canada Life UK has operated in the United Kingdom since 1903. We have hundreds of respected and supported employees committed to doing the right thing for our customers and colleagues. Canada Life UK is transforming to create a more customer-focused business by providing our customers with expertise on financial and tax planning, offering home finance and annuities propositions, and providing collective fund solutions to third party customers.

Job Summary

• To develop sustainable and profitable business relationships with a panel of nominated advisors, positioning Canada Life as the preferred supplier of the full range of protection products, including Life, Income Protection and Critical Illness, by demonstrating exemplary sales behaviours.
• The role will be allocated new business premium (the premium of policies written), case count (the number of policies written) and retention targets (retention of current business).
• Attainment of the new business, case count and retention targets will be incorporated into, and remunerated by, a discretionary quarterly sales incentive plan.
• Within the team you will be allocated a panel of advisers, this could include an Employee Benefit Consultancy SME arrangement of strategic importance (typically up to 100 lives) and/or an account management panel (advisers experienced in protection products).
• Key drivers for the panel are to strengthen the relationship between Canada Life and its partners, and to ensure that appropriate levels of business are written and retained.
• A crucial part of the role will be identifying potential new arrangements to Canada Life and/or successful management of existing arrangements.
• The panel will include a range of adviser experience, varying from transactional and Class focused to occasional more complex business.
• The role holder must be able to build relationships with external advisers who are experienced in our market and must be able to demonstrate a solid understanding of the products, terms and conditions and the market, in order to be credible.

What You'll Do

• To provide face to face, virtual and phone based support to a defined panel of distributors.
• To negotiate, attract and retain business in line with Canada Life's profit margin expectations.
• To work with a defined panel of distributors, ensuring that service remains exemplary, and their needs are met whenever appropriate.
• To manage the development of your panel, including regular key account meetings, understanding the strategies of the adviser firms on panel, articulating Canada Life's strategy and driving alignment wherever possible.
• To utilise sales management to support senior strategic relationships.
• To record feedback on competitor behaviour, price points, propositions and terms and conditions.
• To ensure that advisers are kept up to date on all Canada Life materials and propositions as they are launched, amended or released.
• To undertake all tender and external/internal presentation work when required.
• To seek and manage specific business partnership opportunities such as small employer arrangements and new distributor agreements.
• Provide training and support so that the technology provided by the protection business is utilised by the distributor and customer for workplace protection business.
• To take personal responsibility to develop their knowledge and understanding of all protection products and the markets in which they are distributed.
• To pro-actively develop internal and external relationships.
• To pro-actively utilise strategic level relationships held with members of the Canada Life management team.

Who You Are

• Experience in the Protection market, ideally with sales background.
• Engaging individual that can build strong relationships, with selling, negotiating and persuasion skills.
• Strong protection technical knowledge.
• A pro-active individual that takes ownership and personal responsibility for all aspects of the role.
• Clear understanding of the overriding business objectives of the protection business.
• Internal relationship building skills and the ability to work effectively with other key business functions.
• Excellent communication skills, including strong professional presentation skills across all mediums of communication.
• To develop and maintain up to date knowledge of Canada Life's proposition, products and technology.

Qualifications

• Attained GR1 or working towards it with a clear bias towards technical and legislative excellence.

Benefits of working at Canada Life

We believe in recognising and rewarding our people, so we offer a competitive salary and benefits package that's regularly reviewed. As a Canada Life UK colleague, you'll receive a competitive salary and comprehensive reward package including a generous pension and bonus scheme, along with income protection, private medical insurance and life assurance. We have a fantastic number of other benefits and support services as well as regular personal and professional development.

How we work at Canada Life

Our culture is unique and incredibly important to us. We care about doing the right thing for our people, customers and community and helping others to build better futures. Our blueprint behaviours shape and influence how we work, and are central to the relationships we have with others. Every day we are encouraged to be more curious, own the outcome, face into things together and find a way forward. We want colleagues to have rewarding careers with us so we invest in the development of our people, technology and workplaces. That's why we offer a range of training, flexible working and opportunities to grow and develop.

Diversity and inclusion

Building an inclusive workplace with a diverse workforce where everyone can feel they belong and achieve their potential regardless of gender, ethnicity or any other characteristic is a key commitment for us. We are proud of the progress we're making in DEI, and we continue for it to be a significant focus.