Description/Job Summary

The Assistant Vice President - Vice President, Crop Insurance sells and services crop insurance policies while educating and providing value added services to the member and promotes Farm Credit Illinois to enhance marketplace awareness and member experience.

Responsibilities/Duties

Market Presence

• Generates crop insurance portfolio growth by strategically and actively pursuing new business opportunities

• Identifies key prospects and solicits referrals from lending staff, existing members, and other professional contacts

• Participates in member appreciation events, auctions, producer educational programs, and other public activities to build new relationships and enhance existing relationships.

• Identifies and demonstrates awareness of key agricultural topics and proactively educates producers while providing sound risk management solutions

• Develops and maintains a professional presence in the agricultural community through active involvement in professional groups and community activities

• Develops a network of key contacts and resources throughout the local and regional agricultural and business communities

Growth and Prospecting

• Identify sales opportunities with external prospects and members by cultivating referrals, developing marketplace awareness, and working alongside lending staff to general internal leads

• Originates crop insurance policies and policy renewals by appropriately assessing prospect and member needs and developing risk management strategies to address those needs

• Generating presentations and rate quotes for all appropriate risk management products

• Reviews policy structure and maps to verify appropriateness of insurance coverage

• Identifies where product add-ons can add value

Portfolio Management

• Manages a book of crop insurance policies, including the timely collection and completion of applications, acreage reports, production reports, and all other necessary policy documents

• Reviews all policy documents for accuracy and makes necessary corrections

• Proactively identifies potential current and future claim situations

• Educates the member about claim procedures and provides guidance

• Submits claims as needed

• Monitors the claim processing timeframe

• Reviews claim outcomes with the member as needed

• Responsible for member satisfaction and policy retention through regular and proactive communication throughout the policy period

Crop Insurance Administration

• Reviews crop insurance applications, acreage reports, production reports as well as other documents for completion and readiness

• Ensures documents meet policy provisions and standards

• Coordinates and tracks the compilation of documents needed for insurance policies and claims utilizing the document management system

• Enters information into customer relationship management software to document the insurance sales process

• Utilizes available internal and external technology applications, when appropriate, to populate, process, and finalize policy documents efficiently

• Works closely with centralized processing to ensure proper submission and execution of policy documents and to ensure all policy requirements have been met timely and accurately

Continuous Education

• Engages in and attends continuous education activities to remain informed of ongoing crop insurance coverage changes

• Stays apprised of loan products to answer inquiries and promote cross selling of loan and crop insurance products

• Remains knowledgeable of legislative issues that impact crop insurance

• Attends all necessary training to maintain appropriate state licensing and crop insurance certifications

• Develops an astute understanding of state and federal agricultural programs and strives to be a resource to producers seeking to understand and participate in such programs

• Attends activities to build upon expertise in various aspects of agriculture, finance, and economics

• Gains knowledge pertinent to the geographic region or territory

Data Security and Confidentiality

• Appropriately protects the confidentiality, security, and integrity of the Association's systems and data and clients' data

Required Skills

• Strong working knowledge of production agriculture

• Skill in negotiating to sell and promote crop insurance

• Skill in negotiating complex agreements to achieve the best outcome for the organization

• Skill in critical thinking

• Skill in utilizing a systematic approach to problem solving

• Skill in focusing and concentrating on details, along with differentiating significant and insignificant details

• Skill in utilizing technology to increase efficiency

• Skill in having perception of different dimensions of business issues and making sense out of complex issues while being decisive and flexible to change

• Skill in applying processes and procedures to factual data to make a logical decision

• Skill in engaging, collaborating, and building trust amongst team members

• Skill in interacting and working effectively with others

• Skill in listening and conveying awareness of a customer's problem or issue to find resolution

• Oral and written communication skills, sufficient to exchange information effectively with peers, supervisor and customers

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in business, finance, agriculture, or related field and;

AVP - no experience; VP - 3 years of experience in sales or an ag related field;

Or an equivalent combination of education, experience, and skillset sufficient to perform the essential functions of the job

Details

Valid crop insurance licensed required within three months from time of hire.

Must be willing and able to travel throughout the assigned territory