1 Benefits of Benchmarking A Case Study AXA Canada Johanne Cassis Vice President Finance, Corporate, Administration and Procurement

2Benchmark - AXA Canada Summary How does AXA Canada benchmark ? 0303 Why AXA Canada chose to benchmark externally ? 0404 Benchmarking to drive improvements: an example 0505 Some actions implemented 0606 Benefits gained from external benchmarking 0707

3Benchmark - AXA Canada How does AXA Canada benchmark ? Internal regional Canada wide benchmark Lack credibility More discussions than actions due to cost allocations and regional market differences International Group productivity benchmark Regulations very different from one country to another Data not always available in some companies and reported (accounted) differently Time consuming and difficult to identify actions to improve our processes External Benchmark IBC - Few participants - More a cost analysis by major line of business and functions in Canada (no regional data) - A lot of costs allocation and most of the time simple basis - Not really useful > Conclusion: None of these benchmarks gave us what we needed to improve our processes and our costs.

4Benchmark - AXA Canada > Conclusion: We needed an independent firm that understood insurance and had a lot of experience in that field. Based on a market research in North America, we decided to select Ward Group to assist us. Why AXA Canada chose to benchmark externally ? We needed to know where we stood vs. our competitors and identify our gaps. We needed a tool that could help us to «measure, compare and improve» our costs We needed credible analysis that could be accepted by operations and drive the changes we were looking for (pure costs vs. allocation) We needed information that could help our shareholders to understand our cost structure vs. our peers.

5Benchmark - AXA Canada Benchmarking to drive improvements : an example Operational vice presidents seriously considered this exercise and wanted to understand and improve their results. Some of our regions were better than market, some others were behind. Credible benchmarking results drove actions and internal competition. One region decided to lead an internal analysis of the key processes of some business units in different regions This drill down identified areas for improvements

6Benchmark - AXA Canada Some actions implemented were: 1. Migration of support tasks to ABS 2. Managed headcount reduction in support retention and management consolidation (Target Ward benchmarking Ratios) 3. Centralized some units (productivity, retention) 4. Consolidated some business teams (similar business processes) 5. Improved technology 6. Workflow process re-engineering 7. Monitored expense ratio quarterly and headcount on these specific processes > Conclusion: In a soft market situation, these units became better than competitors and sister companies.

7Benchmark - AXA Canada Benefits gained from external benchmarking Gave us an aligned vision on our regional cost structure (starting point and Targeted vision) Learned about ourselves: - Where we were ahead of our competitors in terms of processes, practices - Where we were lagging vs. peers and also between regions Great source of market intelligence not only numbers and ratios - New trends - Preoccupations - Priorities Part of our annual planning process - Results presentation by Ward in July with all top executives and CFO are attending Became a strategic management tool: - Helped us to set priorities for cost improvement - Helped us to identify areas where we needed to develop and grow our market share - Helped us to set objectives in our Target Letter (AXA Balanced Scorecard) and measure it every quarter > Conclusion - Benchmarking : Helped us to improve and keep the focus within AXA Canada Was an internal communication tool to all levels of management Gave our shareholders the information they needed on our cost structure