AXA’s CCO, Rashidat Adebisi, champions customer-centric digitisation at FITC

The Chief Client Officer (CCO), of AXA Mansard Insurance Plc, Rashidat Adebisi, has stressed the critical role of digital transparency and value chain integration of technology in the industry’s transformation journey.

Adebisi, who was one of the speakers at the launch of the Financial Institution Training Centre (FITC) 2024 Insurance Chief Executive Officer and Industry Report, challenged insurers to prioritize behavioural insights and transparency in product development by ensuring that technology serves customers’ needs rather than simply optimizing sales.

Speaking on the theme of Driving Sustainable Growth in the Insurance Industry through Digitization, Collaboration, and Customer-Centric Strategies, Adebisi said that as the insurance industry embraces digitization, it must apply the same rigour to understanding customer behaviour and needs, noting that this approach is the surest way to build customers’ confidence in the sector.

“Our focus should be on creating products that customers want to buy, not just the ones we want to sell. Digitization should not be an excuse to strip away customer benefits in pursuit of lower prices; it must be a tool for building trust,” she said.

Adebisi, a thought leader in the insurance industry, further called on stakeholders to look beyond product distribution and harness technology for a more holistic transformation, including claims management and customer engagement. She also challenged the industry to rethink microinsurance, arguing that while it focuses on low-income markets, a broader inclusive insurance approach is necessary to bridge protection gaps across all segments of Nigerian society.

“At AXA, we believe that sustainable growth in insurance must driven by true inclusiveness. Inclusive insurance addresses gaps across all segments of society, not the lower, small-case approach of microinsurance only. While microinsurance has a place in our market, an inclusive insurance approach opens us up to the fact that there are people across the various segments of our society who do not have any form of protection”, she argued.

“Only a few Nigerians have more than two insurance policies, and most of the policies are even those bought for them by their organizations. What this shows is that social class is not equal to insurance inclusivity. So if we focus on microinsurance as we currently operate it, we might be looking at the tree and missing the forest”.

She said AXA’s approach has been to focus on inclusion, noting that the company partnerships with the telcos and fintechs have been very instrumental in driving that agenda. “Our partnerships with insuretechs, fintechs, telcos, and our home-grown tech solutions have provided us with opportunities to bring in more people who are first-time buyers of insurance. This is not a matter of case sizes but the fact that we have been able to reach urban youth, gig workers, informal sector operators, and rural dwellers with insurance. These customers cut across different age ranges and socio-economic classes”.

She urged the regulators to embark on the transformation journey with the sector, explaining that a punitive-measure-first approach to innovation will stifle the industry more than unlock its potential. Our regulator has already put in place most of the enabling frameworks and policies including a sandbox. “We now need to collaboratively work to ensure that we harness the benefits of technology for our industry,” she concluded.