ZERO HERO - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Chief Marketing Officer, Zoopla

Job Titles:

• Group Head of Communication, Brand and Corporate Responsibility, AXA

1. What are the negative consumer behaviors that exist within the insurance and asset management sector? What could AXA do to nudge positive behaviour? First it's important to say that when we look at negative consumer behaviour in our sector there is actually no such thing as ‘bad behavior' - because the sector itself does not have a negative externality. We don't pollute a lot and we're not draining the resources of the planet, so it's more about us being able to influence behaviors that aren't directly linked to the purchase of our service. Where we've had the most impact in nudging more positive and virtuous behaviours has been in the health insurance sector. We found that one of the ways to stay aligned with the interests of our customers was to really engage them with ways for them to have a healthier lifestyle, which then aligns with our own interests because we'd have less claims to pay. One red line we would not cross was to link this more positive behavior to payment premiums. I think there are very few markets where something like that would be found to be socially acceptable. Let's say for example, if you quit smoking and are going to reduce your premium, that's something that is socially very risky. So we focus less on premiums and more on other mechanisms to encourage people with advice, insightful expertise, and maybe some additional benefits such as access to gyms or nutritionists. We have explored how to nudge positive behaviours on climate change and the environment especially on the insurance retail side. At AXA we've looked at tying premiums to, for example, car usage, fuel consumption, etc. These are things that have been tested and experimented with which we could further explore. However, the issue for us is that there has been no correlation so far, that demonstrated the link between local consumption and insurance risk. So for example, SUV drivers don't have more claims or more accidents than a driver of a hybrid car. And so this is an initiative we could take, but there is no rationale that would make it a global rule for the sector.