Business Development Manager – Retail at AAR Insurance

Overall Purpose of the Job

Reporting to the Group Head of Distribution, the Business Development Manager (Retail) is responsible for driving sustainable / profitable growth of AAR’s retail insurance business, with a focus on family and individual health products. The role will deliver revenue growth by strengthening relationships with intermediaries, expanding distribution through emerging and digital channels and ensuring products remain competitive, customer-centric and compliant with regulatory and service excellence standards.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement retail business strategies to achieve set revenue, growth, and profitability targets.
• Drive business through intermediaries (brokers, agents, bancassurance partners) and alternative channels.
• Continuously identify, assess and capture new markets and customer segments for AAR’s retail products.
• Monitor and manage performance across channels, ensuring proactive interventions to close gaps.
• Build and sustain strong relationships with intermediaries and distribution partners to maximize productivity and business inflows.
• Partner with branches, bancassurance, digital platforms and alternative distribution channels to enhance penetration.
• Provide regular engagement, training, and motivation to intermediaries and partners to drive loyalty and revenue growth.
• Work closely with product development teams to review and enhance retail insurance products, ensuring market competitiveness and alignment with evolving customer needs.
• Collaborate with brand and marketing teams to design, roll out, and track targeted campaigns that increase awareness, uptake and engagement of retail products.
• Benchmark products against competitors to ensure AAR delivers superior and innovative value propositions.
• Support the creation of bundled or segmented solutions to meet the needs of emerging customer groups (youth and emerging demographics, digital natives, wellness-focused families).
• Champion digitization of the retail sales process, including self-service portals, quotation engines and mobile distribution solutions.
• Drive adoption of digital sales tools by intermediaries, branches and internal teams to improve efficiency and customer experience.
• Explore partnerships with fintechs, aggregators and lifestyle platforms to open new revenue streams.
• Ensure retail business development initiatives adhere to AAR’s Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) framework and regulatory requirements.
• Work closely with service and operations teams to ensure turnaround times (TATs), service quality and customer satisfaction metrics are consistently met or exceeded.
• Integrate customer and partner feedback loops into ongoing improvements of products, campaigns and processes
• Track, analyze and report on sales performance, product profitability and market developments.
• Provide insights and strategic recommendations to senior management on growth opportunities, risks and emerging trends.
• Ensure positive ROI on business development initiatives, campaigns and channel investments.

Education, Experience & Competencies

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Marketing, Actuarial Science, or related field.
• Diploma in Insurance, ACII or equivalent.
• Minimum 5 years’ experience in sales and business development of retail insurance products.
• Demonstrated success in managing intermediary networks and leveraging digital distribution channels.
• Ability to translate strategy into actionable plans.
• Strong relationship-building with intermediaries, partners and customers.
• Familiarity with digital distribution, automation and emerging channels.
• Ability to adapt quickly to changing market and customer needs.
• Focus on achieving growth and profitability targets.
• Upholds ethical, legal and regulatory standards.
• Effective teamwork with product, brand and distribution teams.