About

The legal team at AXA Insurance in Hong Kong is led by Maaike van Meer, chief legal and compliance officer, who is assisted by head of legal Ben Wang Pui Wang in her management of the legal function, as well as Vicky Lam regarding company secretarial support. The team consists of 11 lawyers, two company secretaries, a legal translator and three legal secretaries. The subdivisions of the team are led according to specific areas of expertise, including outsourcing and digital support by Jannie Chan and Alan Lee, insurance products development by Pauline Choi and Joyce Wong by investment and high net worth related support by Fiona Ho and Cassandra Tam, general insurance support by Stephen Ng, and contentious, HR and distribution-related matters by William Huynh. The team has implemented a new focus to the legal services provided within the company, with particular concentration on being customer-centric, embracing innovation and ensuring efficiency while ensuring the highest standard of integrity. In doing so the team has re-designed its outsourcing-related support workflow which allows for flexibility for business units to engage external services providers, depending on the nature, complexity and sensibility of the services in question. It has become more agile in its support of the design and rolling out of insurance products to prospective policyholders. Further showing its effectiveness, the team has reduced external legal costs and looked to embrace opportunities to acquire new skills and knowledge. In the last two years the legal team has advised the company on all of its major projects and transactions including the sale of its Swiss Privilege franchise, AXA Wealth Management, to Jeneration Holdings for €237m, and the sale of AXA’s Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) and Occupational Retirement Schemes Ordinances (ORSO) businesses to Principal Financial Group for HK$2.6bn with a deal between them to enter into a 15 year exclusive distribution agreement allowing Principal to offer MPF and ORSO products through AXA’s proprietary networks in Hong Kong. The team has also worked on the launching of an innovative insurance product that helps policyholders to accumulate wealth, with the flexibility to pass on their legacy to future generations and the experimental launching of an innovative app named “Xtra”, a personal training, nutrition and wellness coaching app. Van Meer describes the ethos of the legal department as working ‘with a “pineapple bun” culture. In short, we are simple, straightforward but practical in achieving our goals’. The team actively participate in AXA Hong Kong’s Diversity and Inclusion Council. Activities of this council touch upon such topics as gender harmonization,  multi-generations collaboration and LGBT initiatives including collaboration with Pink Dot as well as sports groups and community outreach.