The Greek insurance business of AXA offers life insurance, health insurance, car insurance, and home insurance among others

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AXA reportedly considering to offload its Greek insurance business to Generali. (Credit: Kokky92/Wikipedia.org)

French insurance major AXA is reportedly in discussions to offload its Greek insurance business to Italian insurance group Assicurazioni Generali for $177m.

The sale is part of AXA’s plans to divest business lines that are considered to be surplus to requirements, reported Bloomberg, citing undisclosed sources familiar with the matter.

Brief details of AXA’s Greek insurance business

The Greek insurance business of AXA offers life insurance, health insurance, car insurance, and home insurance among others. It was renamed as AXA Insurance in 2007 from Alpha Insurance following ownership transfer to AXA.

Alpha Insurance was formed in 1999 through the merger of Emporiki Insurance and British Hellenic Life and Loss Insurance, owned by Alpha Bank Group.

AΧΑ Insurance is said to plan and provide bancassurance products, solely for Alpha Bank customers, under a long and exclusive cooperation scheme which is made up of the selling of its insurance products through a range of the bank’s network.

The Greek insurance business employs nearly 500 people and has annual revenues of €160.4m by serving around 576,000 customers in the country.

Earlier this month, AXA reported its half-yearly 2020 earnings which saw its total revenues come down by 2% to €52.4bn compared to €58bn reported in H1 2019. The net income was down by 39% at €1.43bn in H1 2020 compared to €2.33bn reported in the same period last year.

In February 2020, AXA signed a deal to divest its operations in Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia to Austrian insurance company UNIQA Insurance Group for about €1bn.

In December 2019, the French insurance group acquired the remaining 50% stake it previously didn’t own in AXA Tianping Property & Casualty Insurance for €590m. The deal helped AXA Tianping to become the largest 100% foreign-owned property and casualty insurer in the Chinese market.

Prior to that, in November 2019, the French insurance firm sold the remaining stake it had in AXA Equitable for €3.1bn.