Recent rapid economic development in Macau has brought enormous expansion extending across different business sectors, providing exclusive opportunities for the insurance sector. To optimise this market potential, AXA Hong Kong has announced the expansion of their business in Macau, with the opening of a new office, implementation of the latest InsurTech and maximisation of the sales team to cope with the market.

“AXA Hong Kong has been established in Macau for nearly 30 years. We have been providing innovative and diversified products and services to our clients. With the activation of major infrastructure projects, including the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and High Speed Rail, the traffic flow and economy have been further enhanced in the Greater Bay Area. The average income [1] of Macau residents has increased and the current labour population in Macau is relatively young with around 54% aged 25-44 [2]. The need for wealth management and insurance protection has increased accordingly. Besides this, the insurance penetration rate is only around 2% [3], and we can see a huge demand in the Macau market. Over the past two years we have expanded the agency force in Macau by more than 25%, and we expect to almost double our agency force in the next two years and grow our next generation of financial consultants to meet this demand,” said Etienne Bouas-Laurent, Chief Executive Officer, AXA Hong Kong.

Macau’s current insurance penetration rate is just 2% [3] and so AXA Hong Kong aims to provide diversified products in the future

AXA Hong Kong, which is mainly engaged in life & savings and medical & critical illness insurance as its major product offerings in Macau, has seen 15% growth in new business over the past year. Traditionally, life & savings insurance products have been more popular in the Macau market. However, following the major destruction brought about by Typhoon Mangkhut and Typhoon Hato, the awareness of residents for insurance has increased exponentially. In light of this, AXA Macau will launch more general insurance product offerings, such as home and travel insurance, next year.

Moreover, Macau residents are living longer along with improvements to their medical and living standards. The proportion of the elderly population is estimated to reach 15.4% [4] by 2021, while public health resources are being challenged. With the increasing standards of living quality of the “new-age elderly”, medical & critical illness insurance will be AXA Hong Kong’s second focus in Macau.

In recent years, many multinational corporations have been opening new branches in Macau, including multinational gaming corporations, resulting in an enormous increase of 5.5% [5] in the number of expatriates staying in Macau as compared to last year. This has created a big opportunity for AXA Hong Kong, as several internationally famous gaming and entertainment corporations have become AXA Hong Kong’s key employee benefits insurance clients in Macau, making the company as the leading insurance provider of employee benefits. Following the grant of license in Macau to operate most non-life insurance businesses, AXA Hong Kong will be launching travel and home insurance in Macau in Q2 2019, providing a more comprehensive and complete product offering to its customers in Macau.  

Expanding office size by 50% and introducing latest InsurTech to cope with business expansion

Situated in The Macau Square, the new AXA office is in a prime location on Avenida do Infante D. Henrique, with an expanded size of 50% bringing it to 41,800 sq. ft. The new office offers a refreshing sense of simplicity in design, and, with an extensive co-working area and leisure zones, it creates a harmonic and transparent working environment. New technologies are also incorporated with staff entering and leaving the office with a QR code, and making use of their QR codes to reserve rooms for work and meetings, greatly improving business efficiency and communication.

To keep up with the needs of the younger generation, AXA Hong Kong is proactively digitalising its product development and operational process. AXA Hong Kong has also implemented InsurTech in the Macau market and introduced the Lead Club to provide more targeted sales opportunities for financial consultants. At the same time, innovative use of big data analytics can also effectively ensure good matching of the financial consultants with customers, optimising sales efficiency and enhancing the customer experience.