AXA's Ecosystem builds beyond construction industry origins

March 13, 2023 6:30 AM

AXA Milan_1021x576.jpg — The Milan, Italy office of AXA XL.

Digital Insurance spoke with Rose Hall, senior vice president and head of innovation for the Americas at AXA XL. Hall led the development and launch of the carrier's Construction Ecosystem, a suite of products, services and networks intended to reduce risk for AXA policyholders in the construction business. Hall joined AXA in 2015 and began working on the Ecosystem project in 2019. The insurer promoted Hall to her current role in October. The project, which became operational in 2020, has been recognized with awards from the Celent and Accenture consultancies. AXA's office of innovation plans to roll out the Ecosystem to other sectors. Its innovation services unit partners with 35 technology companies to serve AXA policyholders.

How did AXA’s Ecosystem offering start?

RoseHall - AXA.jpg — Rose Hall, senior vice president and head of innovation for the Americas at AXA XL.

Our risk engineering group and construction has been the go to place for our customers for ages about risk management advice. In the last couple of years, in this new digital era, our customers were asking us about more than just how to manage risk. They were asking us how to use technology to manage risk. That is the direction that risk management is going in. So we better keep up. It really was born out of customers' desire to improve themselves. They're looking to us for that guidance.

We did a couple of things before we got it right. We originally started thinking about this in terms of a data ecosystem and what could we do if we had all this data from our customers' technologies and how could we be a better insurance partner with all this data. We found the customers are not ready to show us their data. They weren't comfortable enough with their own data. They weren't comfortable enough with technology, and they certainly weren't comfortable enough with their insurer, which told us we need to become more of a partner than just a commoditized transactional part of their lives.

We realized that what they really wanted help with was consulting. They wanted our advice. They wanted to know what their peers were doing. They wanted to know what was going to help them reduce risk. And so we pivoted in that direction. In January 2021, we made a huge pivot away from data and toward a product services and network model. Then we started scaling it in construction in 2021. And once we got that right then we were asked to scale it across the Americas.

How has Ecosystem enhanced how you serve policyholders?

The biggest benefit is getting us closer to our customer and developing that trusted relationship such that they come to us for one line of business and we're so sticky with them that they want to see what we can do on other lines of business. We created a network of ambassadors across our business units in order to do just that.

Now the customer comes to their property underwriter. Our ambassadors are from our underwriting teams that are close to the customers. A customer with a property policy will ask about water leak mitigation technology, such as IoT sensors for pipe leaks, and we help them with that. We can also look at what the premium, deductible or collateral looks like, considering they're using a technology that helps manage that risk.

In construction, when we connect them with water leak mitigation technology, and that's there when their building is built, it makes it a better risk for us to insure on the property side. An ambassador in construction calls another ambassador in property, telling them to show the customer a property quote considering the fact that they have water mitigation technology in their building. It's that relationship across lines that brings more value to the customer for a cohesive relationship with us.

What is the ‘Payer to Partner’ strategy?

"Payer To Partner" is one of the taglines we use here at AXA XL moving more from a payer of claims to being a partner in risk for our customers. We advance our "Payer To Partner" strategy by developing innovative products, services and expert networks that elevate industries, reduce risk and delight the customer.

A lot of what we're doing protects what matters for human progress. When you are helping customers protect their business, their profits and their people, that follows along the same lines of what we're doing here. These are those three pillars: the services, the solutions and the networks. We have case studies, thought leadership, podcasts, all kinds of things to help our customers figure out what technology they're ready to engage. Our insurance solution is the middle part, pairing technology with a policy to offer a reduced premium, reduced deductible or adjusted collateral.

We see a cross section of an industry that they can't ever see on their own -- our customers, who love to talk amongst themselves. Having a safe space to have conversations about how to solve their common problems, has proved very valuable for the construction industry. While they're talking about their problems, we listen to them and their struggles. We find out what we need to put on the market to solve the customers' problems.

Generally this kind of innovation is happening at the consumer level, but not necessarily at the commercial level. It's a lot easier to have safe drivers save 40% when it's one driver and one policy in a household with two cars. It's a lot harder to do that with a fleet that runs across the U.S. without some significant data and other risk management controls.

How do you succeed at pairing technology with selling policies in the commercial market?

I don't know that anyone's figured it out in the commercial market yet. There's a lot of innovation that's inwardly focused. Most insurance innovation departments are focused on innovating their claim systems, their data analytics and their submission systems. And while all of that absolutely is necessary, it is not designed to delight the customer.

It's a completely different remit to focus on the customer's needs, and meet your own goals through the customer network. We have an innovation department that's focused on our own innovation. How do we innovate? How do we underwrite innovatively? How do we do claims innovatively? My group isn't about IT and infrastructure conversations. My group is about helping our customers innovate, and innovating the way we deliver our products and services to the customer in the market.