AXA unveils growth plans in UAE & region during Group Chairman and CEO visit

Mr Henri de Castries, Chairman and CEO of AXA Group – worldwide leader in insurance and asset management serving 102 million clients globally, today announced plans to accelerate AXA Gulf growth in the Region. The plans were unveiled during the one-day visit of Mr de Castries to the UAE. The visit followed a two day-long visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

The visit of Mr de Castries to the region comes amidst AXA delivering robust financial results in 2012. The Group recorded revenues worth Euro 90.1 billion and underlying earnings amounting to Euro 4.3 billion in 2012, and had Euro 1,116 billion assets under management. In the past decades, AXA Group has built one of the largest insurers worldwide and is the number one global insurance brand for the fourth consecutive year.

Mr de Castries comes in the region as AXA Group reinforces its focus on high growth markets to build on its market leadership. Globally, AXA Group has already invested Euro 4 billion in new markets through acquisitions and partnerships in the past years and the company has already reinforced its presence in 19 countries in the last three years.

Talking about the visit, Mr de Castries said: “We have grown from strength to strength every year in the GCC, which remains one of our key growth markets. The region still records low insurance penetration levels, risk awareness of the population is increasing thus there are growing insurance needs to address. The insurance market in the region has a great future and we are committed to work with the regulatory bodies, partners and teams here, who have made our success possible. We aim to support the current business model here by leveraging AXA Group’s strengths and expertise.”

During the year, AXA maintained its growth and profitability across the globe with a strong focus on delivering its strategic plan “Ambition AXA” by being more selective and by shifting its new business towards more profitable segments that address evolving customer needs.

AXA in the Gulf also recorded strong financials with a growth of more than 20% of its premiums reaching US$626 million with a contribution of all its five countries in the GCC. AXA over the last years has built the leading non-life international insurer in the GCC. In few years, AXA Gulf has grown from a small team of 150 employees to over 800 employees across the GCC, servicing in excess of 500,000 clients.

Mr de Castries also inaugurated the new AXA shop at Dubai Mall during the visit. The shop, situated at Lower Ground level and close to Waitrose, is aimed at offering a strategic and accessible location to boost AXA customer convenience and is part of its mandate to extend world-class service backed by unique insurance solutions.

He added: “This region plays a pivotal role in our future expansion plans. The needs for insurance and risk management are ever increasing. Our objective in the region is to become the preferred insurance company for customers, distributors, employees and shareholders and ensure that AXA Gulf is fully aligned with the market needs.”

Jérôme Droesch, AXA Gulf CEO, said: “We are well positioned to make the difference in the Gulf. We have continued to relentlessly pursue efficiencies and product innovations to extend competitive advantage and value for policyholders in the evolving market environment. Across the five countries in the Gulf where we have presence, we report a very high customer satisfaction over 80% and I think the best proof of our success is our recent recognitions received at the MENA Awards - General Insurer of the Year and Personal Lines Insurer and the Banker Middle East Awards - Best SME Healthcare Insurance Product.”

He added: “We are committed to accelerate our growth in the region by engaging and building the capacities of nationals in the insurance sector. We are looking at aggressive expansion of our multi access model and notably our AXA Shops – we now have 16 shops in the region and planning to open more than 10 in 2013. Our success is mainly attributed to our efforts to delight our customers by surpassing expectations and we are very grateful to our clients, partners and shareholders for their trust”

As one of the leading names in the UAE and regional insurance sector, AXA Insurance Gulf products are tailored across all sections – corporates, SMEs, individuals and families.