AXA has unveiled a three-year strategic plan that makes its position in the softening large commercial and specialty market explicit, while committing to a group-wide artificial intelligence deployment it expects to generate €500 million to €700 million in annual pre-tax benefits by 2029.

The plan, titled Growing Forward, covers 2027 to 2029 and sets four headline financial targets: underlying earnings per share growth of 7% to 9% between 2026 and 2029; an underlying return on equity of 15% to 17% over the plan period; mid-teens annual growth in book value per share including dividends; and approximately €25 billion in cumulative organic cash upstream over the same period.

AXA XL to hold back in softening conditions

AXA XL, which accounted for 17% of AXA group revenues in 2025, has already been pulling back reinsurance volume as pricing falls. Gross written premiums at AXA XL Reinsurance fell 9% to €1.8 billion in the first half of 2026, with pricing down 5%, according to AXA's half-year results. The Growing Forward plan makes that posture clear for the full three-year cycle - in large commercial, AXA XL will focus on disciplined cycle management rather than chasing share.

AXA's property and casualty combined ratio held at 90.1% in the first half of 2026. At AXA XL specifically, the plan states the group will prioritise margin over market share as softening continues. Brokers taking large or specialty risks to market through 2027 and beyond should expect AXA XL to keep prioritising margin over volume, which affects both where it will compete and how hard it fights on terms.

The backdrop is well-evidenced. Guy Carpenter's global property catastrophe rate-on-line index fell 16% through the 2026 renewal season, the steepest annual drop since the late 1990s, driven by record reinsurance capital and increasingly competitive renewal conditions. AXA contracting at AXA XL Reinsurance in that environment, rather than absorbing lower rates to hold premium, is a deliberate signal about where the group sees acceptable returns.

Growth concentrated in SME and mid-market

Where AXA XL is pulling back, the plan directs growth elsewhere. AXA expects to gain share in property and casualty retail, small and medium-sized commercial, and life and health, which together represented 83% of group revenues in 2025. The group also plans to broaden partnerships with independent financial advisers and specialist brokers serving affluent and high-net-worth clients, and to expand direct distribution to meet demand for more accessible cover.

Carriers concentrating capital in SME and mid-market segments tend to compete harder on price and terms in those books than in lines they are managing for margin. AXA stating that direction publicly, with three-year targets attached, gives the market three years of advance notice on where its appetite is concentrated.

AI in underwriting and pricing, with a hard target

AXA has built a central AI and technology hub and will deploy AI across submission triage, pricing platforms in property and casualty and health, underwriting decision support, automated claims management and contact centres. Its target is for those deployments to generate annual recurring pre-tax benefits of €500 million to €700 million by 2029, based on current projections.

AXA XL's UK and Lloyd's operations have already been restructuring their data architecture around faster placement and AI-assisted triage - a task that the plan is designed to accelerate group-wide. That trajectory raises a practical question for brokers with complex risks: whether AI-assisted underwriting decisions at AXA can be challenged by a reviewer with genuine authority to override them.

The Chartered Insurance Institute warned in August 2026 that carriers deploying AI in underwriting risk treating "human in the loop" as a formality unless the reviewer is genuinely equipped to question automated outputs. That consideration bears directly on how confidently a broker can stand behind a placement outcome on a client's behalf.

Thomas Buberl, chief executive officer of AXA, said the plan was built around an ambition to "become the insurer best positioned to meet our customers' growing protection needs and address the emergence of new risks, and thus organically grow our market share across our geographies and lines of business."

Guillaume Borie, global head of finance, strategy, underwriting, risk, and technology at AXA, described the group's aim as "turning our scale, technical discipline and AI capabilities into a lasting competitive advantage, delivering value for both our customers and shareholders."

AXA enters the plan period with underlying earnings of approximately €8.6 billion projected for 2026 and a Solvency II ratio of 218% as of June 30. The plan's clearest message is where the group intends to grow and where it does not, and the role AI will play in shaping how its underwriters engage with submissions across both.