Health, your way: 
Navigating the future with flexiblity, 
choice and confidence 

I'm Liz. I'm Head of Health propositions in AXA Health. 

I've got over 20 years of experience working in the health insurance market. And I'm really excited to talk to you this morning about the importance of prevention, early diagnosis, and onward support through survivorship, and how it's crucial to help not only the health of our members but also the health and sustainability of our broader offering in the market. 

This morning, I'm going to cover some of the key services we have within our existing proposition and share some data to show how those are delivering good value to our customers and our clients. And I’ll whet your appetite at the very end with a sneak peek of some of the services we're planning to launch in 2027. 

As Rob said, there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions in the chat as we go. So, let’s kick off; if we go to the next slide. Thank you. 

Expectations from consumers and corporate buyers alike are constantly evolving, and people are looking to health insurance providers such as ourselves for support. With a number of growing challenges around areas such as rising sickness and absence rates, managing long-term conditions, and additional health concerns that arise as you age. 

And with the increase in the aging working population and initiatives that Rob mentioned earlier, such as Keep Britain Working, this is putting more pressure and demand on health services—from the employer, the corporate funder, and the providers themselves. 

We just want to ground this a little bit in some of the numbers you can see on the screen here. The latest UK government research tells us that one in three workers has a long-term health condition. Interestingly, one in five people who typically would describe their health as good also have a long-term health condition. 

And when we look at this from a corporate funder perspective, the obvious statistic we refer to is sickness absence rates. The CIPD has announced that our sickness absence rates in the UK are at the highest level in fifteen years. 

But my challenge back is that if we only look at sickness absence rates, we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Looking further into the data, we see that 58% of workers have worked despite not feeling well enough to do so. That’s 58% of employees who are struggling—they’re managing conditions, worried about their health, or simply not functioning at their best when at work. 

Employers can feel the impact of this in the quality of output and staff engagement. Another angle is the statistic that around four in ten cancers are preventable through lifestyle factors—that’s 40%. That’s a significant volume of preventable disease that can have a life-altering impact on individuals, their families, their coworkers, and for those small to medium-sized businesses, a big impact on overall business performance. 

So, health insurance needs to continually evolve to help people stay well for longer, identify problems earlier, and support recovery. Within my team and the broader company, we’re constantly challenging ourselves with the question: how do we help people stay well, support those problem areas earlier, and connect them to the right support when they need it most? 

That involves looking at health as a journey, broken down into three simple phases: stay well, act early, and live well. 

The true value for a health insurance provider is not just what happens at diagnosis and treatment—this is the traditional space—but the difference we can make before, during, and after that. We need to design products and propositions as one integrated health journey, focused on health outcomes. 

What I want to do now is walk you through what we already have within our product suite for each of these phases, and share some of our performance data to show how we’re supporting members at each stage. 

Let’s start with ‘Stay Well’. This area is all about prevention and risk reduction. It’s about educating people on their risks, understanding modifiable lifestyle factors, and signposting them into services when they need help. 

The unmet need here is that many health risks develop gradually, and not all of them are obvious. People can appear very well—they go to work, carry on with life, but they’re carrying a high health risk. That’s why looking only at sickness absence rates can be misleading. 

For example, high blood pressure affects over four million adults in the UK who are undiagnosed. It carries a huge risk of strokes and heart failure. I know this from personal experience with my husband, who experienced occasional headaches and attended an eye appointment. The optician noticed some damage to the back of his eye and asked about his blood pressure. He hadn’t had it checked for some time, so he was directed to a pharmacy for an immediate check. 

Long story short, he was diagnosed with dangerously high blood pressure and a congenital heart defect. Now, he’s well-managed on medication, but the story highlights how risks can be hidden. If he hadn’t gone for that eye test, that risk might never have been identified early. 

This story illustrates why proactive wellbeing services are so important. We offer services such as ‘Know Your Numbers’, health assessments, and overall well-being scores that assess modifiable risks like cholesterol and blood pressure. We work closely with clients to tailor programs that meet their workforce needs. 

We haven't yet included genomics in our prevention proposition because it’s still emerging. We believe that beyond just genetic results, there needs to be clinical pathways to ensure safety. We encourage you to access our spotlight session on genomics, which features experts from Cambridge and HCA discussing the evolution of genomic testing and its role in prevention. 

Our focus remains on areas where individuals are empowered to take control and make lasting lifestyle changes—like better diet, increased exercise, and improved sleep—to reduce risks and improve overall health. 

Moving to the ‘Act Early’ phase, this concerns awareness, access, and timely diagnostics. Many people don’t recognize symptoms or delay seeking support, which can lead to worse outcomes. 

Our proposition includes education and clear pathways to enable early diagnostics, including access through virtual GP services such as Doctor Care Anywhere. Appointments are typically available within two hours, with a range of healthcare professionals. 

We also operate high-performing secondary care pathways, such as breast and skin cancer services. For example, with our partner Check for Cancer, 95% of members are offered an appointment within five days, and results are provided within that timeframe—significantly faster than NHS averages. 

Our mental health services have also seen demand skyrocket since COVID. We work closely with trusted partners, and 85% of members achieve positive outcomes—much higher than NHS benchmarks. 

Additionally, our partnership with HBSUK provides rapid access to dermatology, with 95% of patients reviewed within one day, compared to nine weeks in the NHS. 

All these pathways are designed to support early detection and intervention, which can lead to better clinical outcomes and cost savings. We also track the cost benefits of these pathways, demonstrating the value of early diagnosis and treatment. 

Finally, the ‘Live Well’ phase focuses on support after diagnosis and treatment. Once treatment concludes, many individuals experience anxiety and concerns about recurrence or long-term effects. 

For example, with cancer survivors, we offer fatigue management programs, which have helped reduce fatigue levels by 20%, and health coaching services to support recovery and return to normal life. Our programs help individuals set goals such as improving diet, increasing exercise, and better sleep—all supported by our dedicated cancer care team, who consistently achieve customer satisfaction scores in the mid-90s. 

The aim is to offer continuity of care, create a supportive member experience, and help people return to work and everyday life with confidence. 

In conclusion, the examples I’ve shared demonstrate how we’re supporting every stage of the healthcare journey with carefully curated pathways. But we believe there’s more we can do in 2027. 

We plan to expand our pathways to cover more health conditions, use risk stratification to target those at highest risk, and explore new innovative services. We recognize that the return on preventative investments can take time, but we believe in the moral and business case for early intervention. 

We’re actively working on enhancing our services, including risk assessment, weight management, mental health support, and return-to-work programs. These will be part of our next-generation offerings. 

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to sharing more updates in the future. Now, I’ll hand back to Rob to see if there are any questions. 

I'm sure you'll be invited back. Liz. 

Thank you. Really appreciate it. 

And thanks for sharing your husband's story as well.  Very interesting. 

And actually, if anyone wants access to any of those spotlight sessions, I believe there's also one due to come on cardiac or it's already or has already taken place. 

But please reach out to me, Liz, or any of your account managers as well.  So or anyone at AXA Health. 

And thank you Liz so much. There is a question in the chat. The question is knowing your risks is great, but how do you drive behavioral change? 

We know that's difficult. And taking actions on the risks is more of a challenge. 

If you're happy to pick up that question. 

It is a great question because with many of these things, it's common sense, isn't it, but not always common practice. 

So we know things like reducing your alcohol intake, increasing your exercise, practicing sun safety.  All these things are really common sense but not common practice. So, I don't think there's one particular silver bullet or panacea that can solve this. 

And that's why we're creating a broader prevention strategy that will be picking up different lifestyle changes and challenges. 

We have a range of offerings, as I say, from simple things, just understanding your health score and your risk and then creating targeted services to help through those. 

Data is the key here, right? To help unlocking the areas there and make sure that we're truly targeting those individuals at the highest risk and targeting them with the right services. 

And so that is part of our strategy for next year to better interconnect those services. 

And I'm sure Chloe will talk through that  a little bit later this morning as well. 

If there's any particular questions for a particular client, please do reach out to us and we can address those as well offline. 

My name is Chloe Barrett, and I'm the Head of Strategy for AXA Health in the UK. 

Thank you for joining us today. And I'm very much looking forward to sharing our strategic direction with you for 2027 to 2029. 

If we move on to the next slide that would be great. Thank you. 

So of course, our strategy is informed by our strategic market context. And you'll all be familiar with these dynamics. So I won't spend too long here, but I'll just mention what we're seeing. 

We're seeing continued rising demand for PMI driven by firstly an aging population and rising chronic disease, which is putting more pressure on NHS waitlists, and secondly, by the increasing role of employers in proactive healthcare management. We expect this growth to continue. 

Although the market has softened since the post-pandemic boom levels that we saw in 2022–23. But despite the continued growth, we must navigate a number of challenges, including medical inflation, which is materially above general inflation driven by treatment costs, advanced therapies, and innovation. 

Secondly, continued challenging macroeconomic conditions, including the cost of living crisis and, of course, PMIs are discretionary good, and therefore the market, particularly for individual, has softened accordingly in recent years. 

Another challenge is the potential for digital disruption and AI adoption. And of course, that's also increasing. We need to be proactive in this space. 

To respond to these dynamics, our strategy will focus on controlling medical inflation and costs through our integrated healthcare strategy, which I'll talk about later. Investing in data foundations, which Liz mentioned, is a key enabler of some of the work we need to do in the prevention space as well. We will also carefully implement AI to remain efficient and competitive. 

Investing in propositions, prevention, and customer experience is essential to differentiate and drive growth. 

Coming to our strategy, at the heart of it is our mission: helping more people get excellent care with ease. This mission is supported by three pillars. 

The first is Growth, which is about increasing the value we provide to customers and reaching new customers. We focus on both our propositions—about which Liz spoke—and the way we service our customers with speed, reassurance, support, quality, and confidence. We are also improving how we evidence this value and share it with clients and brokers. 

This pillar builds on the strong work we've done over the last plan period to return to growth, notably in the individual and SME segments, which have seen significant new business growth over the past year. 

The second pillar is Excellence. It involves maintaining technical discipline to protect our market-leading position in claims and underwriting. It also aligns with our vision to become an expert partner in healthcare delivery. 

This means improving customer health journeys through further integrated healthcare, ongoing provider management, and more seamless, digitally enabled journey navigation. We expect this focus to deliver excellent health outcomes. Building on the work from the last period, I will also discuss our HBS acquisition and its results later. 

The third pillar is Simplicity. This focuses on reducing complexity in our operating model—especially in service and claims—to enhance the customer experience and maintain efficiency. Like the other pillars, it builds on previous efforts, including re-platforming and investments in data, AI, and automation. 

Next, I will outline some of the key strategic initiatives that will help us deliver on our mission and across these pillars. These include integrated healthcare, our digital member experience, AI-driven service and claims transformation, proposition enhancements, prevention efforts, and strengthening our data foundation. 

Our vision for integrated healthcare is to evolve from a payer of healthcare to an expert partner in healthcare delivery. We aim to improve customer outcomes by focusing on prevention, leveraging precision medicine, and optimizing pathways. We are committed to selective integration and strong provider management, all delivered through a seamless digital and physical healthcare ecosystem that offers members genuine choice and control. 

This vision is expected to deliver an exceptional customer experience, with a seamless journey from start to finish. Customers will have the right navigation tools, understand their pathways, and feel in control. We also aim to improve health outcomes through better access, coordination, and proactive care, while lowering claims costs and managing medical inflation by reducing unnecessary treatments and optimizing provider relationships. 

Opportunities include redesigning pathways to create digital-first, AI-optimized services that help customers navigate their healthcare journeys, optimizing provider network management for quality and cost efficiency, strengthening clinical governance, and selectively integrating vertically where opportunities exist, including ongoing integration of our HBS acquisition. 

HBS has expanded under our ownership from an MSK-focused entity to one of the most comprehensive providers of digital secondary care services, with five specialties now in place. We've seen a significant increase in uptake, with 61% of MSK customers entering our pathways. Typically, members will have their case reviewed within one working day, and diagnostics can be arranged conveniently close to their location. 

Over the next year, we will focus on optimizing the customer experience, delivering more value in diagnostics and treatments, refining access networks—including integration with our new consultant finder and digital booking platform, which provides access to 15,000 doctors. 

Moving to our digital member channel, investment here is critical for helping members navigate a seamless healthcare journey. We've made progress with single sign-on and multi-factor authentication, making access more connected. Our ambition is to increase self-serve activity, enabling a digital-first (not digital-only) approach, and give members channel choice. 

We plan to introduce insurance capabilities into the app to ensure parity across web and mobile. We aim to digitize and automate journeys so that over 60% of claims are initiated and concluded digitally by 2030. Our goal is to enable members to access their care in one place, integrating third-party services to deliver a holistic experience—improving customer satisfaction and efficiency. 

In service and claims, our ambition is to create a simpler, faster, and more personalized experience through automation, reducing costs and friction. We emphasize that we are not replacing people—healthcare is personal. AI and automation will handle routine tasks, supporting colleagues so they can focus on moments that matter most. By 2029, AI is expected to support around a third of interactions, with colleagues providing empathy, expertise, and reassurance. 

Examples of current initiatives include machine learning to identify members at risk of critical health episodes, enabling early intervention, and AI to route members efficiently across contact channels. For claims, we will develop smarter guidance, AI-powered support, and use voice AI to understand needs from the first interaction. Routine decisions will be automated for faster, more consistent outcomes, reducing manual intervention, improving quality, and controlling costs. 

In proposition innovation and prevention, we are developing flexible, modular products and building on our prevention offerings. Prevention is a core focus across AXA Group, with a commitment from our Group CEO, Thomas Bubel, to make prevention central to our offers and services. This aligns with our social and environmental commitments and addresses rising customer expectations. 

Investment in our data capabilities remains critical, supporting automation, AI, and insights. We are developing customer 360 views, improving provider data, standardizing reporting, and enhancing analytics for predictive insights and personalized interventions. Progress in pathways data enables more granular insights into employee interactions and outcomes, helping us demonstrate ROI and improve service. 

By integrating data from the outset, we’ll measure not only engagement but also the impact of preventative interventions on health, workforce well-being, and claims trends. We aim to improve our Power BI reporting for better transparency and decision-making, providing richer dashboards and insights to all customers. 

The benefits for clients include greater visibility into employee health trends, better understanding of program effectiveness, earlier risk identification, and improved ROI. Enhanced reporting supports benefit strategy, workforce well-being, and cost management, driving continuous improvement. 

In summary, our strategy is designed to generate value for members and clients through our healthcare initiatives, service and claims automation, digital platforms, propositions, prevention, and data investments. These efforts will improve customer experience, health outcomes, and competitiveness. 

We look forward to working with you to ensure our initiatives meet your needs as we implement these plans. I now hand back to Rob to facilitate any questions. 

Thank you very much. This is an exciting time, and I believe we have a lot of promising developments ahead. 

There was a question actually I think for Liz, but actually I've answered it. About where we find information about AXA member annual health checks, I've popped a link on there for an offer we're currently running through our SME provision, but also there's a number of wellbeing activities available through AXA Health. So things like Know Your Numbers Days, coaching, screening, and other initiatives. 

And actually, we've recently put together some wellbeing bundles. So again, please ask or reach out to me if you've got any requirements on that side of things. I can share some of the pricing lists, but there's a lot of free collateral within the AXA Health app as well, which is fantastic for supporting your members too. 

So again, happy to share some of that as well with you at a later time. 

I think Chloe, at the moment, there isn't really anything on here from a question perspective. Rachel, if you just jump on to the next slide, if anyone's got any questions for Chloe, for Liz, myself, please pop them in the chat. 

Just really whilst we're doing that and whilst waiting for any questions to come across, there's just a couple of recent enhancements. I'll be honest, I've been asked to plug at the same time because I think they're obviously very relevant, and we've fully launched our cardiology, urology, and other services through our kind of HBS UK, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of AXA Health. 

And they are, from what I understand, really working well. Members are embracing those pathways. So we'll be able to give you a more enhanced update next time we meet, which is normally around May time—so May 27th. 

And we've also got some enhancements through our relationship with Peppy—enhanced prescription and testing. That's for things like diagnostic at home, private prescriptions, and clinical support. Peppy have also introduced a service for neurodiversity, which is for everyday support. 

That's slightly different from our relationship with Problem Shared, which is a more holistic pathway. But this is also available to all AXA customers who may wish to look at Peppy as an add-on to their current products. 

And we do have a question coming to the chat. So, will the SME members have access to an app, and if so, when is this likely to be rolled out? 

Now, I’m not sure anyone will know the answer today, so let me just ask Chloe. I don't know if you’re aware of our future rollout plans for SMEs. 

Yeah, so the vision is that it will become available to all of our segments, but we can't share a specific timeline at the moment. There will be iterative releases over the next few months and beyond as we build out the capability. 

And we will share with you, as and when relevant, the timelines for all the different segments and capabilities that we roll out. But I can't share a specific date just now. 

But yes, it will. The intention is for it to be available to all segments. I think that's all that matters. It's coming. When we can share a date, we certainly will. 

Obviously, if you've got any questions, please feel free to send them across, and we'll respond through your account managers. 

I just want to thank both Liz and Chloe for your time today. Everyone who joined, thank you very much, and thank you for taking the time to listen to the webinar today. Please, any feedback you've got, please send across to me or your account managers. 

We always like to use these events to develop and showcase anything you may wish to see in the future. We do these twice a year. And on that note, I bid you a lovely day. 

Enjoy the rest of your day, and I hope to see you again in 2027.