AXA XL mid-market in focus

Following this year’s BIBA conference in Manchester, Hannah Hosking, AXA XL's Head of Mid-Market UK & Lloyd's discusses appetite for mid-market business and ambitions for the sector

Mid-market companies are an important part of the UK economy. Against the backdrop of today’s economic turbulence, global supply chain obstacles, and new and emerging challenges, we recognise that our mid-market clients often have complex and evolving risk and insurance needs. 

As a specialty insurer, our goal is to understand our clients’ risks by assessing them on an individual basis and to give them a bespoke, tailored solution. I am excited that we are expanding our mid-market presence, building on the strong relationships we have with existing clients and working with new clients to offer a specialist approach to this important sector. 

We have been scaling up our mid-market teams for some time now and have welcomed new colleagues across the UK in Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Manchester and London. Additionally, we have also appointed an Industry Practice Leader for mid-market.

We aim to grow our book of mid-market clients, whom we define as those with annual turnover of between £500 million and £2 billion, in a sustainable, long-term way, building strong, local relationships that are customer-focused and give innovative solutions to our clients’ risk challenges.

As part of the global AXA group, we have the ability to work alongside our colleagues at AXA UK, many of whom will be ‘on the ground’ with us at this BIBA conference, to cater to the specialist needs of mid-market companies from property and casualty, to motor, cyber, marine, crisis management and product recall coverages, among many others. 

The AXA XL ethos of being a partner, not simply a payer, for clients means that as well as providing risk transfer solutions we are focused on finding ways to help our mid-market clients to prevent and mitigate risks. 

Our risk engineering capabilities are proving a valuable resource for mid-market clients as they explore ways to improve risk prevention, strengthen their risk profiles and manage insurance budgets. 

Adapting to new priorities

Two of the biggest priorities for companies of all sizes right now are the need to embed good Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) practices and to navigate their unique journeys towards the energy transition. For mid-market companies, ESG performance and the energy transition present new challenges and opportunities. 

These priorities form part of AXA XL’s mid-market commercial strategy, and we have dedicated teams working in these areas helping us to further develop risk and insurance solutions that help our clients achieve their ESG goals and demonstrate them to their own stakeholders.

Our risk engineers, underwriters and claims experts – across all lines of business – have access to those dedicated experts and also are constantly building up and developing their own understanding of these issues in order to provide our clients with the most relevant risk and insurance programmes. In addition, we are working with brokers and clients to gain insights into how we can bring ESG goals into tangible client solutions – often in innovative ways.

We have a team of very talented underwriters and claims professionals. But we recognise that as risks evolve and our clients’ needs change, we need to ensure our knowledge and expertise is evolving too. To that end, our professionals continually train and learn. We have also invested in technology to free up their valuable time to spend with brokers and clients.

As well as their specialist risk and insurance needs within the UK, many of our mid-market clients have operations or partnerships overseas. Our international programmes offering can help these clients to manage and transfer their global risks too.

For more information on our mid-market offering, check out our brochure HERE