Specialty Insurance Product Owner (Consultant)

If you’re passionate about helping people protect what matters most to them at a Fortune 100 company with nearly $70 billion in annual sales, as well as innovating and simplifying processes and operations to provide the best customer value, then Nationwide’s Property and Casualty team could be the place for you! At Nationwide®, “on your side” goes beyond just words. Our customers and partners are at the center of everything we do and we’re looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.

The Specialty Insurance Product Owner, Management Liability Specialty Operations, is accountable for maximizing the value of products and capabilities supporting MLS operations and related specialty insurance areas. The role may span MLS, including Surety Bonds, Credit and Political Risk, and other related product areas.

The Product Owner partners with business leaders, operations teams, broker/agent partners, customers, underwriters, technology, data, compliance, and other stakeholders to translate business needs into a prioritized roadmap, quality releases, and measurable business outcomes. This role is comfortable creating clarity from ambiguity, making informed decisions with incomplete information, and balancing customer value, operational effectiveness, risk, compliance, budget, and technical feasibility.

Key Responsibilities

Product strategy, roadmap ownership, and market awareness

• Define and maintain the product vision, roadmap, priorities, and desired outcomes for assigned capabilities.
• Develop a strong understanding of MLS Operations, related product areas, users, workflows, pain points, market needs, and applicable regulatory or control considerations.
• Engage business stakeholders, operations teams, customers, broker/agent partners, and other users to validate problems, gather feedback, and define measurable outcomes.
• Monitor competitors, market trends, and evolving capabilities to help MLS remain relevant and keep pace in the marketplace.
• Identify opportunities to improve customer experience, operational effectiveness, decision support, automation, data quality, and controls.

Backlog, delivery, and distribution partnership

• Own and prioritize the product backlog in JIRA, including epics, features, user stories, acceptance criteria, dependencies, risks, and release targets.
• Translate complex business processes and rules into clear requirements that delivery teams can execute.
• Partner with technology, architecture, engineering, QA, data, security, operations, and vendors through refinement, development, testing, release, adoption, and production support.
• Provide timely decisions, clarifications, and trade-off recommendations to maintain delivery momentum and avoid rework.
• Confirm that completed work meets acceptance criteria, intended outcomes, and release-readiness expectations.
• Use AI tools responsibly to accelerate discovery, analysis, documentation, story development, test design, and other product activities while protecting confidential information.
• Use prototypes, workflow mockups, wireframes, process concepts, and rapid experimentation to validate ideas before significant delivery investment.
• Build effective relationships with distribution partners and involve them early in discovery to validate proposed workflows and capabilities.
• Design and coordinate pilot testing with selected distribution partners when appropriate; establish clear objectives and success criteria, gather structured feedback, and incorporate feasible enhancements before broader release.

Business cases, budget, and outcomes

• Identify opportunities and develop business cases for review and submission, clearly describing the problem or opportunity, recommended approach, expected value, measurable benefits, investment and resource needs, costs, risks, dependencies, and implementation considerations.
• Partner closely with the Project Manager, SEPM, and Agile Leader to maintain accurate forecasts, monitor expenditures against approved maintenance funding and business-case budgets, address variances, and escalate risks or required decisions promptly.
• Define success measures, baselines, key performance indicators, adoption measures, and benefits-realization plans for projects and initiatives.
• Showcase and demonstrate measurable outcomes through product demonstrations, stakeholder readouts, dashboards, status reporting, or other appropria…