To kick off Financial Inclusion Week, Garance Wattez-Richard, Head of AXA Emerging Customers, joined CFI’s Beth Rhyne for a digital fireside chat. During the conversation, which you can listen to in podcast format at the top of this page, Beth and Garance discussed how new products and partnerships are unlocking access to insurance. Here are five key insights from their conversation:
1. Insurance is a business driver. Insurers are taking past lessons learned and using them to fuel business model innovation. The issues are the same, but the rise of new technology and new players makes it possible to come up with scalable and affordable solutions. AXA is playing a social impact role in the global economy by supporting microinsurance products.
2. Insurers cannot “go it alone.” Partnerships are a key driver in broadening AXA’s reach around the world. Specifically, AXA’s partnership with MicroEnsure is providing the technological rails and customer insights to reach emerging customers.
3. The rise of the middle class and decreasing number of people living in poverty presents an opportunity to reach those who are “too rich to be poor and too poor to be rich.” This underserved middle segment is growing to be the world’s largest population.
4. Ensuring that distribution partners are maintaining attention to client feedback and keeping in close proximity to the client is key to designing cost-effective products. Open dialogue and shared strategy (double bottom line) with distribution partners is key.
5. A good insurance product is tailored to the client it serves. For example, it is important to develop targeted products for women client segments. Women are “time poor”; they are most concerned with their children and their parents’ wellbeing (not their own). Women are forward-looking (e.g. will save to educate their children) and trustworthy (no time to commit fraud).
AXA is the lead partner and sponsor for Financial Inclusion Week 2017. The AXA Group, world leader in financial protection, supports its individual and corporate customers at every stage of their lives, providing them with the products and services that meet their insurance, personal protection, savings and wealth management needs. Present in 64 countries, the 161,000 employees and distributors of AXA are serving 103 million clients worldwide. In February 2016, the AXA Group announced a new business initiative to contribute to financial inclusion and better serving the middle class of tomorrow by ramping up the development of its Emerging Customer insurance offer across high-growth markets.
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