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The article examines AXA UK's decision to invest in a four-year, £25 million sponsorship of the English Football Association's Challenge Cup beginning with the 1998-99 season. Corporate profiles are provided for the sponsor along with a comprehensive socio-historical overview of the property. As a member of the French-based, multinational AXA Group, the relationship of this domestic sponsorship (offering worldwide exposure) to the company's strategic emphasis on “Thinking Globally” and “Acting Locally” is examined. The Sponsorship Team's careful selection of the property and formulation of strategic goals, challenges, creative themes, consumer targets, and partnerships is presented. Evidence suggests that AXA UK's decision to pursue sponsorship over advertising paid significant dividends through the first two years of the agreement.

K2's work with AXA (UK) has developed from a single “athlete at work” workshop for one manager into a high‐performance coaching program across 40 claims teams in multiple sites. It also formed part of AXA's Fast Forward initiative for accelerating individual talent. This paper aims to explore how the program developed at such scale, changing the inherent performance culture within AXA's critical claims business and giving the teams improved control over their results outcome.

Delivery of K2's elite team program to front line claims teams and management personnel was designed to inspire confidence, improve morale and establish a network of support, thereby triggering a sustainable cultural change within the organization and all‐round better performance.

The author demonstrates how a structured, premeditated performance program can often lead to unexpected, organic shifts in behavior that positively influence and alter a company's future outlook and performance ratio. By taking ownership of new styles of working, leaders can inspire and innovate through workforce participation, creating highly beneficial standalone initiatives that are adopted into the business on a permanent basis.

The article summarizes the relationship between K2 and AXA Claims, the difficulties facing both staff and leaders at the outset of the program, and how K2 set about effecting lasting change through use of individual and team techniques and methodologies.

While competition within car and home insurance increases through more players and also unfamiliar entrants to the market (supermarkets), the purpose of this paper is to report on a study of one large insurer in Ireland which attempts to differentiate itself from its peers.

The paper does this through a literature review of the insurance market and customer relationship management, and a detailed study of the company loyalty programme and its application to its customers.

The loyalty programme employed suits the particular sector in terms of purchase intention and also gives the customer of the insurance brand a sense of belonging and relevance where they can avail themselves of savings on related products.

Information sourced is based on published data from the company and other peer reviewed journals. This is a study on a simple loyalty programme that can be applied to low frequency purchases.

This simplified loyalty programme gives the brand high recognition values in terms of how the brand is made relevant to the customer through discounted related products.

As loyalty programmes are not a usual feature of financial services, this paper highlights a unique programme in operation that is being replicated elsewhere.

The objective of writing this case study is to allow management students to engage with the complexities of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the insurance sector in an emerging economy like India. Upon completion of this case study, the students will be able to critically evaluate the business environment of the insurance sector of a developing economy like India, analyse the impact of M&As on the insurance industry of India, appraise the post-merger consequences and strategies to deal with these consequences, assess the applicability of market power and growth theories in the context of M&As and develop a strategic action plan for handling post-merger challenges.

On 3 September 2021, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) approved the “Scheme” related to the merger of the non-life insurance division of Bharti AXA General Insurance Company Limited (“Bharti AXA”) with ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited (“ICICI Lombard”). Earlier, on 21 August 2020, the boards of the companies had approved entering into definitive agreements through a scheme of arrangement. The merger received approvals from different regulatory bodies as mandated (Gandhi et al., 2023). Bhargav Dasgupta, managing director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Lombard, stated, “This is a landmark step in the journey of ICICI Lombard, and we are confident that this transaction would be value accretive for our shareholders” (FE Bureau, 2020). However, the merger posed a dilemma for Dasgupta and the management regarding crop insurance owing to its impact on profitability. Crop insurance historically had high claim ratios nearing 135% for ICICI Lombard for financial year 2018. The company ceased to underwrite this product from 2019 onwards (TNN, 2019). However, ICICI Lombard had to fulfil the three-year commitment made by Bharti AXA to the state governments of Maharashtra and Karnataka towards crop insurance. It was a scheme initiated by the Government of India, covering farmers against losses due to cyclonic rains, rainfall deficits and other unforeseen calamities. Dasgupta faced a challenge in managing the interests of the farmers and the company’s shareholders while balancing profitability, which had already been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This case study delves into post-merger complexities in the financial sector non-life insurance industry in emerging countries like India.

This case study is suitable for undergraduate and post-graduate management students and executives from the insurance industry.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

To analyze the August 2016 court decision in Sivolella v. AXA Equitable Life Ins. Co. and its implications for cases concerning mutual fund advisory fees under Section 36(b) of the of the Investment Company Act of 1940.

Discusses Section 36(b), the plaintiffs’ arguments and the judge’s decision in favor of the mutual fund adviser. Provides insights from the judge’s analysis of the advisory fees at issue, including the independence of the mutual fund board and quality of the annual advisory contract renewal process, whether the language of the advisory and subadvisory agreements fully reflects the nature and extent of services provided, the board’s reliance on outside experts and advisers when considering the advisers’ fees and services, and continuous improvements in the boards’ annual advisory contract renewal process.

AXA was a decisive victory for the adviser, and serves as a reminder to boards and advisers alike that a diligent focus on board process and independence can pay twofold after litigation is filed.

Boards and advisers should consider AXA’s implications, and whether the decision raises issues that should be reviewed by independent counsel with experience advising funds and advisers with respect to the Investment Company Act.

Practical guidance from experienced financial services lawyers.

Cathryn Gabor is senior vice president of talent management and HR. Previously, she has held positions at W.L. Gore & Associates, Capital One, and Tellabs. She graduated from Wheaton College, IL with a BA in Psychology.

This article describes a strategic Learning & Development (L&D) initiative that has begun in the UK giving the “story so far” on how the approach has been radically altered.

The paper details the setting up of the AXA Academy. This model was driven by one of our strategic objectives to enable us to be an employer of choice and develop our staff to a more consistent standard.

Lessons learned so far include: team members need to be available, for approximately two or three days a month to ensure that the project gets speedily off the ground; and the members of the project teams need to be fully motivated and self starters.

In the financial protection and wealth management industry, there is a real need for consistency in approach and outcomes and the Academy will deliver this.

This paper aims to focus on improvements in the regulated‐sales training team at AXA Sun Life.

Describes how the team was introduced to the TAP learning system and benefits it has brought.

Reveals that the team now has a robust testing and assessment processes for every program and every delegate. This extends to the trainers, who also go through an annual process to ensure that they have the product knowledge themselves, as well as the skills to deliver it. Emphasizes that, because all materials are now designed to the same format, it is easier for one trainer to pick up the program of another, should the need arise.

Points out that the training team, originally ten strong, is how half the size, yet is delivering more programs than ever.

Highlights the value of consistency when regulatory training is involved.

Many studies have discussed mutual funds performance, especially about the persistence of excess returns. Regression is the most common method to be used to research the fund persistence. Dutta (2002) proposes a simpler approach – a direct annual examination of whether a fund beats a market proxy or not, to research the persistence in American mutual fund returns. In this study, authors use a similar methodology to analyse New Zealand growth mutual funds. In addition, a statistically robust method is juxtaposed as a comparison. The study finds that the most of the funds sampled during the period 1996‐2003 are unable to better the benchmark of the world index.