Varley’s appointment comes as Axa Asia looks to double the size of its health and protection business before the end of 2015, according to Justin Hareb, regional director of Health & Protection at Axa.
Asia is regarded as a key insurance market by Axa, and the health and protection business in particular is considered strategically significant, owing to its generally higher margins and business persistency.
According to Hareb, Varley will be responsible for laying the groundwork for building sales of Axa Health & Protection products.
“As such, he will be working with distribution and delivery teams across the region, in both life [insurance] and GI [group insurance], to develop and implement sales marketing tools, distributor training and best practices for these product lines,” Hareb added.
Also new to the operation is Philip Choy, who has been named regional medical services manager.
Varley is an Australian national, and has worked in China, Melbourne, Singapore and Hong Kong over the past 12 years.
Axa has had a presence in Hong Kong for more than 26 years, and is said to be the fourth largest insurer there, after Prudential, China Life and AIA.
Varley’s successor at Axa’s international brokerage office in Hong Kong has not yet been named.
