AI Business Lead-Excess & Surplus

About Us

At Selective, we don't just insure uniquely, we employ uniqueness.

Selective is a midsized U.S. domestic property and casualty insurance company with a history of strong, consistent financial performance for nearly 100 years. Selective's unique position as both a leading insurance group and an employer of choice is recognized in a wide variety of awards and honors, including listing in Forbes Best Midsize Employers in 2025 and certification as a Great Place to Work® in 2025 for the sixth consecutive year.

Employees are empowered and encouraged to Be Uniquely You by being their true, unique selves and contributing their diverse talents, experiences, and perspectives to our shared success. Together, we are a high-performing team working to serve our customers responsibly by helping to mitigate loss, keep them safe, and restore their lives and businesses after an insured loss occurs.

Overview

Serves as the dedicated, embedded AI leader within our Excess & Surplus business unit, accountable for driving AI adoption, championing AI-driven transformation of workflows, processes, and ways of doing business, and maximizing the business unit's use and leverage of enterprise AI capabilities. Acts as the primary AI evangelist and strategic connector between business unit leadership, frontline professionals, and the AI COE. Owns the business unit's AI portfolio view and adoption outcomes, proactively shapes use cases, pushes for innovation, delivers small-scale AI solutions, and escalates misalignment, stalled progress, or resource issues to the AI COE Leader and business unit leadership. This role's objectives align with those of the business unit's executive leadership to ensure shared accountability for AI-driven results. All job duties and responsibilities must be carried out in compliance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

Responsibilities

• Serves as the primary day-to-day COE representative and AI evangelist within the assigned business unit. Builds trusted working relationships with the business unit's leadership (VP/Product Owner), frontline professionals, and support staff to understand priorities, pain points, workflows, and readiness for AI-enabled change. Actively promotes the value and opportunity of AI, challenges the status quo where AI can improve outcomes, and builds momentum for AI-driven transformation.
• Proactively identifies, shapes, and documents AI use cases in partnership with business unit stakeholders, ensuring proposed opportunities are grounded in business need, aligned to the business unit's strategy, mapped to executive sponsorship, and evaluated against intake criteria before advancing to solution design or development.
• Owns the business unit's slice of the enterprise AI portfolio, maintaining an accurate view of key AI proposals, pilots, active initiatives, deployments, adoption levels, dependencies, and blockers. Actively monitors initiative health, identifying when work is misaligned with strategic objectives, not progressing at a reasonable rate due to technical barriers, sponsorship gaps, resource constraints, or adoption challenges. Takes direct action to remove barriers and accelerate progress; escalates unresolved issues to the COE Leader and business unit leadership with clear context, impact assessment, and recommended next steps. Tracks value realization for deployed capabilities against defined KPIs and contributes to enterprise AI portfolio reporting.
• Accountable for AI adoption and utilization within the business unit. Tracks adoption metrics, identifies barriers, gathers frontline feedback, and works with business unit leaders to reinforce behavioral change and accountability for AI-enabled workflows. Drives participation in enterprise AI training programs, develops and delivers business-unit-specific enablement content, and provides feedback to the COE Leader on training effectiveness, gaps, and needed adjustments. Identifies opportunities to demonstrate AI value through quick wins that build momentum and accelerate confidence. Maximizes business unit uptake of approved AI solutions, identifies BU-specific applications and configurations, and provides actionable feedback on solution gaps, improvements, and new capabilities needed.
• Leads the business unit's AI Champions cohort as part of the broader GenAI Alliance. Energizes the network by surfacing emerging use cases, sharing success stories and lessons learned, and connecting Champions to COE resources and enterprise-wide initiatives. Cultivates Champions as change agents who reinforce adoption, challenge resistance, and advocate for new ways of working.
• Translates between business language and AI capability, helping business unit professionals understand what AI can and cannot do, and helping engineers and architects understand the business unit's operational context, terminology, decision processes, regulatory considerations, and workflow nuances.
• Actively contributes to enterprise COE activities including intake reviews, portfolio reviews, standards development, and cross-business-unit knowledge sharing. Brings real-world business unit perspective to strengthen COE practices and enterprise AI strategy. Identifies proven AI solutions and patterns from other business units and advocates for their application within the assigned unit, where applicable.
• Coordinates with the COE, IT application delivery, and enterprise governance bodies to ensure that AI work within the business unit conforms to enterprise standards, governance requirements, and the Written Artificial Intelligence System Program (WAISP). Escalates compliance, governance, or risk concerns to the COE Leader for routing to the AI & Model Governance Committee.

Qualifications

Knowledge and Requirements

• Knowledge of artificial intelligence concepts, tools, and platforms at a practical working level, including generative AI, large language models, prompt engineering, AI assistants, and low-code/no-code AI development tools
• Knowledge of property and casualty insurance operations relevant to the assigned business unit (e.g., underwriting workflows, claims handling, pricing, distribution, or regulatory compliance).
• Understanding of change management principles and the ability to support behavioral adoption in operational environments where AI introduces new workflows, decision patterns, or ways of working.
• Ability to build and maintain trusted relationships with business leaders, frontline professionals, and technical teams across organizational boundaries.
• Ability to manage a portfolio of concurrent AI initiatives, track adoption and value realization, identify issues early, and communicate clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to work independently with limited direction while maintaining alignment with enterprise standards, priorities, and engagement model.

Education and Experience

• College degree preferred in Business, Information Technology, Insurance, or a related field.
  Minimum of seven years of progressive experience in insurance operations, technology, product management, business analysis, or a related discipline, with demonstrated experience working across business and technology teams.
• Minimum of three years of experience in property and casualty insurance with working knowledge of the assigned business unit's core operations (underwriting, claims, pricing, or distribution).
• Demonstrated experience with AI concepts and tools is required.
  Hands-on experience with generative AI platforms, prompt engineering, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Power Platform, or similar technologies is preferred.
• Experience in product ownership, business relationship management, business analysis, or change management in a cross-functional environment is preferred.
• Experience leading or actively participating in communities of practice, working groups, or similar cross-functional enablement networks is preferred.
• CPCU, AU, AIC, or similar P&C insurance designations are preferred. Microsoft AI or Copilot certifications are a plus.

Total Rewards

Selective Insurance offers a total rewards package that includes a competitive base salary, incentive plan eligibility at all levels, and a wide array of benefits designed to help you and your family stay healthy, achieve your financial goals, and balance the demands of your work and personal life. These benefits include comprehensive health care plans, retirement savings plan with company match, discounted Employee Stock Purchase Program, tuition assistance and reimbursement programs, and 20 days of paid time off. Additional details about our total rewards package can be found by visiting our benefits page.  

The actual base salary is based on geographic location, and the range is representative of salaries for this role throughout Selective's footprint. Additional considerations include relevant education, qualifications, experience, skills, performance, and business needs.

Pay Range

USD $163,000.00 - USD $220,000.00 /Yr.
Additional Information

Selective is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. That means we respect and value every individual’s unique opinions, beliefs, abilities, and perspectives. We are committed to promoting a welcoming culture that celebrates diverse talent, individual identity, different points of view and experiences – and empowers employees to contribute new ideas that support our continued and growing success. Building a highly engaged team is one of our core strategic imperatives, which we believe is enhanced by diversity, equity, and inclusion. We expect and encourage all employees and all of our business partners to embrace, practice, and monitor the attitudes, values, and goals of acceptance; address biases; and foster diversity of viewpoints and opinions.

For Massachusetts Applicants

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.