Armed with insights gained from its market research in Nigeria, AXA Mansard, with support from IFC, developed a strategy to better target the women’s market. The company launched the “Super Hero Everyday” (SHE) Initiative with three key approaches: innovative partnerships, a revamped sales and distribution strategy, and women-centric insurance solutions.
APPROACH 1: CREATING INNOVATIVE LONG-TERM PARTNERSHIPS
Through leveraging its relationship with Women in Management, Business, and Public Service (WimBiz)—Nigeria’s largest women’s business network—AXA Mansard formally launched the SHE Initiative in November 2017. Following the Annual WimBiz Conference, the company announced its commitment to becoming the preferred insurer for Nigerian women, and to collaborate with the network in conducting workshops and advising individual women on the importance of insurance for mitigating their current and future risks.
In addition to its partnership with WimBiz, AXA Mansard has been able to partner with a wide range of organizations that support the improvement of women’s health and financial wellbeing, and collaborate with them in offering a number of awareness-raising programs. These programs target Nigerian women from all walks of life and address issues that genuinely concern them.
For example, to support women who are raising children, AXA Mansard co-hosted a Children’s Finance Fair with Money Matters,d which developed children’s basic money-management skills. The company also co-sponsored the Annual LagosMums Parenting Conference and Exhibition. To reach women professionals, AXA Mansard and Women FM Radio jointly offered a workshop on how women can improve their careers through networking and collaboration.
AXA Mansard staff also participate in a popular weekly radio show that focuses on women’s topics such as how to insure their loved ones, and how to successfully juggle their career and motherhood. On numerous occasions, in partnership with organizations that support women’s health, AXA Mansard has offered programs on mental health, women-specific cancers, and the importance of preventative medicine. As AXA Mansard makes it a point of going wherever Nigerian women gather, it frequently sponsors or co-hosts prominent women’s events. By June 2020, more than 7,700 women had benefited from 16 collaborative events.
These events have helped AXA Mansard to instill a company culture that recognizes the importance of engaging with women to do more than sell and renew their policies and process their claims. This wider engagement has helped the company to debunk the myths and counter the negative stereotypes that Nigerian women hold about insurers. In doing so, AXA Mansard is becoming a trusted source of information for women that helps them and their families to lead healthier, longer, and more financially secure lives.
"Our objective is to partner with women from all walks of life to become their preferred insurer...It is about redefining the way women customers view and react to insurance while being innovative and impactful."- Abisola Nwoboshi, head of AXA Mansard’s Corporate Business Group
