When AXA Financial decided to enter the property/casualty reinsurance field, it did so with a clean slate. Not burdened with inefficient legacy systems, Bill Taylor, vice president of operations for AXA Re P&C, says, It was exciting from day one. We got to take a fresh approach to the whole thing.

That fresh approach meant going against some traditional thinking, for instance, deciding not to use a transaction-based system. Taylor wanted a data warehouse solution for accumulating data from its MGA customers. The predominant challenge was to collect data efficiently, properly, and with flexibility to satisfy the variety of things you have responsibility for as a primary carrier, he says. Meeting that challenge prompted the next hurdle: finding the right vendor solution.

Although his preference was clear, Taylor did look at transaction-based systems, but he kept returning to a data warehouse concept, even though he knew there were limited options for a data warehouse with a P&C data structure at the time (1999). Thazar was a young company projecting itself as having a data warehouse solution, so I immediately started down the track with them, says Taylor. There were other options, such as IBM or Sybase, but Taylor says he did not feel his company would get the attention it needed if it went with a larger vendor. We were brand new and didnt have any business, Taylor says. I knew Thazar was new, so to me that was a benefit. He says he discovered Thazar had a robust data structure and a sound technology platform. After three months of research, AXA Re P&C had its solution and signed a contract with Thazar late the same year.