The purpose of a Target Market Statement is to explain the identified target market, intended value, expected distribution strategy and fair value assessment outcomes for each AXA Commercial Insurance product.
It outlines our approach to Product Oversight and Governance to demonstrate how we design, monitor and review our products to ensure they continue to provide fair value and meet the needs, characteristics and objectives of the target market including vulnerable customers.
Product Oversight and Governance
At AXA, we take pride in our robust approach to Product Oversight and Governance, ensuring that our products are designed with care and precision. Here’s how we do it:
Design: Crafting products that meet the needs of our target market, based on the nature and complexity of our product.
Test: All of our new products are tested before launch, to make sure they meet our customers’ needs and provide fair value.
Monitor: Regularly assessing product performance to maintain high standards and ensure continuing customer-centric focus.
Review: The features, nature and complexity of our products are carefully matched to our intended distribution channels to ensure they reach our identified target market.
These requirements are in place to ensure that all AXA UK customers receive fair value and that good customer outcomes are delivered in line with AXA UK’s defined customer outcome statements.
Target Market Statements provide information about all of the AXA Insurance products distributed. This includes:
The main features and optional covers associated with our products.
Who our products are designed for and who they are not designed for.
How our products should be distributed.
The complexity of our products.
How to ensure that our product provides fair value to customers as intended.
The outputs of our regular product reviews and fair value assessments.
Please note:
Target Market Statements are not customer facing documents and are not intended to be used for sales and marketing purposes.
If you have a co-manufacturer relationship with AXA, we will contact you separately. This is also the case for a number of schemes and delegated authority arrangements.
Whilst our products have been assessed at an aggregate level, there may be certain aspects we wish to pick up separately with individual broker partners based on information used for the assessment.
Manufacturers of insurance products are required to complete assessments to ensure that these products provide fair value to customers in the target market.
To help us complete our assessments, AXA Commercial requires some information from you to be able to demonstrate clearly the distribution channels we use do not compromise customer fair value.
Will you get the same questionnaire from AXA Health and AXA Retail?
Brokers connected with both AXA Health and AXA Retail may receive separate communications from each.
Can insurers use one standard questionnaire for consistency across the industry?
Some trade bodies have collaborated to create a template. AXA Commercial has reconciled this against our own approach and where appropriate we have tried to align our own assessment with this template, while also providing an online solution to enable easier and quicker completion, so that brokers can meet their own regulatory obligations.
Can brokers request an extension for their submission?
While we encourage brokers to stick to the original submission date for our assessments, we understand that extenuating circumstances may arise. Your needs matter to us.
AXA Commercial manufactures the product, so why do brokers have to complete this?
AXA Commercial needs a clear understanding of the distribution process. The broker partners who we have a direct relationship with are required to provide information about their services, remuneration and distribution arrangements. It's important that product manufacturers and distributors work together to ensure that customers receive fair value from the goods and services they purchase and achieve the right outcomes at every point of their journey, regardless of who they're interacting with.
What response will brokers receive from AXA Commercial following completion of the questionnaire and when?
After we receive your completed questionnaire, AXA Commercial will carefully review your responses.
You will be informed if there are any further questions or what the next steps will be.
The information AXA Commercial has requested from brokers is commercially sensitive and so cannot be provided, why is this needed?
AXA Commercial must ensure that our products are delivering fair value to end customers. This means working closely with all of our broker partners and obtaining more information from them than we have previously, about the remuneration they receive and what they do for customers in return for this. The information we have requested is in line with the requirements set out by the FCA in their PROD rules. This does not require insurers to obtain details of any separate commercial agreements between distributors and other firms, which are paid by the distributor (rather than being included separately in the premium) or a breakdown of the distributor’s costs or profit margins.
When can brokers expect to receive information about AXA Commercial's product fair value assessments?
We know that our broker partners need to understand the value of our products, the target market, and how this impacts their distribution strategies. This information, based on our previous assessments, is already included in the Target Market and Fair Value Statements for our products.
Our Target Market and Fair Value Statements are updated annually to reflect the outcomes of our latest product value assessments.
Who do brokers contact if they have questions or cannot access the questionnaire?
