On October 20th, 2016, the “Tsinghua Students Dialogue with Board Members” was in full swing as part of the series of activities of Tsinghua SEM 2016 Advisory Board Meeting. Denis Duverne, Chairman of the Board, AXA Group, and member of Tsinghua SEM Advisory Board, entered Tsinghua SEM classroom and gave Tsinghua students a splendid speech about how insurance contributes to economic development.

Denis Duverne, Chairman of the Board, AXA Group

Denis He began with introducing the broader values of insurance in terms of economy, finance and society, which was followed by several detailed facts on how on earth insurance makes a difference in boosting economic growth, stabilizing economic cycle and financial cycle as well as distributing toll and welfare vertically and horizontally. When it came to future prospects, Denis pointed out challenges and opportunities the industry was going to confront and objectively stated the limits of insurance.

An impressive part of the speech was InsurTech, on which Denis gave comments that “it starts to cover the full insurance value chain”. InsurTech utilizes mobile applications and new technology to transition conventional insurance industry to one that is equipped with bran-new business models. Denis also compared it to FinTech, which is a well-known concept all over the world, making it comprehensible to all the audience. He also mentioned that at present, Property&Casualty category had made up 36% of InsurTech investments, possessing a leading status among all insurance products. To catch up with the innovation trend, AXA also pays much attention to building its innovation ecosystem and carrying out corresponding strategies. They foster and support in-house innovation, establish AXA labs to watch and probe external innovation, invest in adjacent businesses and partner with leading start-ups.

Denis Duverne, Chairman of the Board, AXA Group

Another highlight came when Denis referred to poverty trap. It is universally acknowledged that poor people who are much more in need of protection from insurance actually have no access to it. Therefore, Denis mentioned several times at his speech that AXA was working on this issue and sparing no efforts to come up with better solutions. Actually Denis is part of the Insurance Development Board created this year between insurance professions at a global level, the United Nations and the World Bank. The group is aimed at providing insurance for 400 million people more than today. In case of natural catastrophe, countries facing natural catastrophe and not having much insurance will be offered an insurance mechanism, which would be founded in part by the government aid agencies, where western governments contribute roughly 0.5 percent of their GDP for international aid, the funding being contributed by some leading insurance companies like AXA and others. As a matter of fact, it shows what a real giant like AXA is doing, shouldering their social responsibility.

The Q&A session was without doubt another most welcomed part of the dialogue. At this part, students raised a considerable number of meaningful questions, Denis answering all of them with patience and insights. He talked about his previous working experiences in both France and USA when asked about how it differs between working in Europe and in America. Then he concluded with praising high efficiency in USA and different working culture in France. A young lady from SEM then asked another interesting question, if it matters that GDP growth rate in China sees a decrease when it is a critical period for China’s insurance industry to expand. Denis solved her puzzle by displaying a surprising fact that China’s insurance had witnessed a growth rate at 30% this year, while the GDP only grew at around 6.5%. That strongly demonstrates the huge growth potential of Chinese insurance market. Hence, AXA considers the Chinese market as a strategic one and invests significantly in its businesses in the country, partnering with ICBC, the world largest bank with 16,000 branches in life insurance, and with Shanghai based company Tianping in P&C business. Speaking of present challenges in insurance industry, Denis underlined that the business of insurance has too much dependence on interest rate. While the interest rate is coming down to an unprecedentedly low point across the globe, they want to reduce this dependence by emphasizing more of the unique features of insurance which is its protection function. On a saving perspective, insurance may be competing with asset management companies or banks, but on a protection perspective, only insurance can offer this kind of service.

Group photo

Denis gave Tsinghua students many profound insights into insurance industry at the dialogue, which the students deeply appreciate. Students applauded loud at the end of the activity to show him their gratitude and warm welcome. They believe Denis’ influence and inspiration will continue to last and his legacy has just begun. (By GAO Yujin)