Getting buy-in for microinsurance activities within a large insurer
Blog 3 in our series on managing change within insurance providers, in partnership with FSD Africa
AXA Mansard, the first insurer to launch a mobile microinsurance solution in Nigeria, decided in 2016 to make reaching the emerging middle class in Nigeria a strategic focus. In alignment with the global Emerging Customers strategy of the AXA group, the Nigerian entity decided to set up a dedicated Emerging Customers unit in the country to reach this market through alternative distribution channels.
Ensuring that the Emerging Customer initiative is prioritized and well understood within the wider company has been a challenge. The focus of the traditional business units is the attainment of their key performance indicators, making it difficult to persuade them to consider the long-term change management required to serve new markets.
An initiative of the wider company turned out to be the perfect opportunity to turn this situation around: a retreat with staff from a range of functions to share customer insights and co-create a digital insurance solution. The retreat was followed by further market research and joint work to establish a value proposition for the target market.
This research proved invaluable in two ways. Firstly, it provided an opportunity to leverage the in-depth market research carried out as part of this initiative, which provided useful information for all microinsurance activities. Since the Emerging Customers team had been able to influence the research design, the results provided sufficient data to create detailed profiles for emerging customers.
Secondly, the way the market research was carried out was equally important. Previously, the company had outsourced market research to research agencies, but this time it was directed in-house. The composition of the core research team reflected the whole insurance value chain: from client-facing to internal operations functions.
Bringing diverse parts of the company together to understand clients in depth provided a powerful experience for all those involved. In particular, the time spent away from the office to draw on everybody’s expertise allowed stronger and quicker connections than could have been achieved through meetings alone. It also provided an opportunity to demonstrate to staff members how their particular expertise and roles at AXA Mansard contributed to understanding and serving this new customer base. As a result, the Emerging Customers team has been able to establish strong working relationships which have also been leveraged for other projects.
Overall, being part of this wider group initiative has helped the Emerging Customers team to forge closer relationships with others working on similar initiatives in the company and therefore learn from and make use of the work that they are doing. Moreover, it has helped persuade others in the business that the emerging customers focus is not only a project but an integral focus linked to all business segments. As a result, new ideas for emerging customers have even begun to be put forward from those working outside of the team.
This blog is part of a joint series between the ILO’s Impact Insurance Facility and FSD Africa. The series explores practical solutions to manage change within insurance providers.
This blog was written by Peris N Mburu, Change Management Consultant at FSD Africa; Marième BA, ILO Impact Insurance Fellow at AXA Mansard; and Alice Merry, Research Officer at the ILO.
