Axa XL
Ecosystem
In 2020, while working in risk engineering for Axa XL’s construction insurance unit, Rose Hall came up with the idea of creating a data ecosystem that could help policyholders improve risk mitigation strategies.
“I was listening to clients and talking to them about their risk,” said Ms. Hall, New York-based senior vice president, head of innovation, Americas, at the Axa SA unit. “Over the last couple of years, they started asking more complex questions about how to manage their risk using technology that was different.”
Out of those discussions, the idea of creating an “ecosystem” of risk mitigation technologies developed. The initial idea was to create a “data ecosystem,” but policyholders hesitated to share data over privacy concerns and the relative infancy of data analytics in insurance, Ms. Hall said.
“Instead of asking for data and creating a data network, we created a partnership network,” she said. “We scoured the wide, wide world of technologies and came up with the ones that we thought were best in class based on our understanding of risk.”
The company’s Ecosystem helps motivate policyholders to adopt risk-mitigating technology and enables Axa XL to develop more targeted underwriting strategies for them.
“When our clients adopt those technologies, then we’re able to look at underwriting their risk differently because they’re a better risk now,” she said.
More than 300 policyholders, many of them Fortune 1,000 companies, use Ecosystem, she said.
The idea behind Ecosystem, which is offered free to policyholders, is to shift buyers from a protection mindset to a predicted risk mindset, helping them make decisions based on the likelihood, impact and severity of a risk before the occurrence of an adverse event, according to Axa XL.
Policyholders can use Ecosystem services, including a peer-to-peer client network offering insights into the technologies used by different companies and their respective success rates.
“They can discuss among themselves what works, what doesn’t work,” Ms. Hall said.
Policyholders using Ecosystem may be eligible for premium discounts, deductible and collateral reductions, and other preferred terms, Ms. Hall said. Discounts have been offered “many times,” she said.
“We know our role in their life is about risk, but the more we can help them with their overall business problems, the better partner we can be,” Ms. Hall said.
Based in New York, Stephen Freeman is a Senior Editor at Trending Insurance News. Previously he has worked for Forbes and The Huffington Post. Steven is a graduate of Risk Management at the University of New York.