Disability Insurance (DI) Finance Consultant

About the Opportunity

Join our Disability Insurance (DI) Claims team as a Finance Consultant and use your accounting and tax expertise to analyze financial information that informs claim decisions and benefit calculations. You'll partner closely with claims professionals and leaders to develop clear conclusions and support accurate, timely, and contract-consistent outcomes. Throughout the claim review process, you'll also communicate with Northwestern Mutual financial representatives, claimants, employers, attorneys, and outside CPAs to clarify financial information and resolve questions. You'll further strengthen financial capabilities across the DI organization through consultation, training, mentoring, process improvement, and project work.

Why This Role Matters

Your work will help ensure complex financial information is understood and applied appropriately in decisions that matter to clients, Northwestern Mutual financial representatives, and the company. This opportunity allows you to apply your accounting and tax expertise in a specialized setting, expand your consultative capabilities, and help promote consistency and continued improvement across DI Claims.

What to Expect

Onboarding and Learning the Role

Your onboarding will build familiarity with Northwestern Mutual's DI products, contracts, claim administration and financial practices, systems, and consultation workflows. You'll apply your accounting and tax knowledge to disability claim scenarios through guided casework, collaboration with experienced team members, and feedback from claims and finance leaders.

Continued Growth

Success in this role grows through continued learning and practical experience. You'll build the knowledge and judgment needed to support increasingly complex products, financial questions, and claim scenarios while developing your capabilities in financial claim analysis, benefit calculations, tax reporting, consultation, written communication, and the application of contract provisions. You'll also remain current on accounting and tax developments through continuing education and professional resources.

What You'll Do

• Provide financial analysis and consultation across DI Claims, applying accounting, tax, and contract knowledge to develop and document well-supported conclusions.
• Review personal and business financial records to calculate and explain earned income, covered expenses, benefit amounts and adjustments, and differences between tax returns and monthly claimant reporting.
• Build trusted relationships with claims professionals and leaders by providing clear, timely, and actionable guidance.
• Partner with DI Claims leaders on complex, sensitive, or high-impact cases.
• Identify potential compliance, tax, or other financial concerns and involve appropriate partners as needed.
• Communicate with financial representatives, claimants, employers, outside CPAs, attorneys, and other stakeholders to clarify information and resolve questions throughout the claim review process.
• Review taxable benefit data and support required federal income tax reporting.
• Build financial expertise across DI Claims through consultation, mentoring, presentations, and training.
• Assist in developing and maintaining financial policies, reference materials, and tools aligned with claim practices, applicable accounting and tax guidance, and contract provisions.
• Support projects and process or technology improvements that strengthen the consistency, efficiency, and quality of financial claim administration.
• Maintain current accounting and tax knowledge through continuing education and professional resources.

What You'll Bring to the Role

• A bachelor's or master's degree in accounting.
• Five or more years of accounting or tax-related experience.
• A CPA designation is strongly preferred. An IRS Enrolled Agent (EA) designation may be considered when accompanied by relevant experience.
• Strong analytical and decision-making skills, including the ability to assess complex or incomplete financial information.
• Ability to work independently, take initiative, and deliver timely results.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate complex financial concepts into clear, practical guidance.
• Attention to detail, organization, and follow-through.
• Ability to train, mentor, and support the development of claims professionals.
• Ability to handle confidential information with discretion.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office and common document management, communication, and collaboration tools, with the ability to adapt to evolving systems, processes, and business needs.

Skills You Have

• Financial Case Consultation & Resolution (Advanced): Provides financial analysis and recommendations to resolve complex financial issues related to cases. Reviews and analyzes financial statements, tax returns, complex legal documents, calculates financial values and ratios, and interprets complex financial concepts and / or NM products to provide guidance and recommendations to other professionals such as underwriters, claims analysts, financial representatives, and clients.
• Mortality, Morbidity, & Risk Analysis (Advanced): Assesses mortality and morbidity through a given set of underwriting factors such as financial, medical, and lay to assess overall risk; classifies and screens applicants using underwriting principles to determine the risk class assigned to the applicant.
• Decision Making (Advanced): Makes timely, data-driven decisions by understanding the probability of success, identifying risks, gathering business requirements, and developing value statements.
• Claims Policies & Practices (Advanced): Seeks out and utilizes resources to resolve complex claim situations and coaches others to do the same. Recognizes when claim handling may pose risk to the company and reviews all relevant claim information to ensure appropriate action and decision-making while managing risk. Determines when further expertise is needed from other stakeholders to resolve complex claim situations that may impact risk management.
• Escalation Management (Advanced): Addresses and resolves incidents where customer wants to communicate with leadership or higher authorities regarding their problems. Empathizes, understands, and interacts with the customer to mitigate their issues using domain expertise and adaptive communication techniques.
• Information Gathering (Advanced): Gathers quality information from a diverse set of sources, using the right collecting technique to utilize in a variety of applications.
• Insurance Finance & Actuarial Acumen (Intermediate): Applies knowledge of a comprehensive range of finance, accounting and actuarial concepts and terminologies within insurance related practices to understand the financial implications of different underwriting decisions, analyze risk, adjusting premiums or changing coverage limits.

Additional experience and knowledge that would strengthen your fit for the role includes:

• Experience preparing or reviewing personal and small-business tax returns.
• Experience working with a variety of businesses and industries.
• Knowledge of disability income insurance products, contracts, or claim administration.

Learn More

Northwestern Mutual's individual disability income insurance products serve both the personal and business markets, helping individuals protect their ability to earn an income and organizations manage the financial impact of a disability. Learn more about these products and their impact by visiting: https://www.northwesternmutual.com/disability-insurance/

Compensation Range:

Pay Range - Start:

$81,280.00

Pay Range - End:

$121,920.00

Geographic Specific Pay Structure:

Structure 110:

$89,440.00 USD - $134,160.00 USD

Structure 115:

$93,440.00 USD - $140,160.00 USD

We believe in fairness and transparency. It's why we share the salary range for most of our roles. However, final salaries are based on a number of factors, including the skills and experience of the candidate; the current market; location of the candidate; and other factors uncovered in the hiring process. The standard pay structure is listed but if you're living in California, New York City or other eligible location, geographic specific pay structures, compensation and benefits could be applicable, click here to learn more.

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Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.