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== Notable quotes ==
=== StrategyStrategic vision and the business model transition ===
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We need to shift our business model from when I started 100% paying claims to... 2030 or Beyond... making the claims payment the exception while helping people to live a better life.<ref name="InsuranceEurope2023">{{cite AV media|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suEfxEP6E4w|title=13th International Conference: Keynote speech Thomas Buberl|publisher=InsuranceEurope|date=June 2023}}</ref>
"My role as a CEO is to moderate that friction... friction between the past and the future... If you don't have friction, it's very difficult to manage change."
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If you can avoid a claim rather than to play a claim correctly that is also a much better Mission... Really be the last resort is to pay the claim.<ref name="InsuranceEurope2023" />
"We need to shift our business model from when I started 100% paying claims to... 2030 or Beyond... making the claims payment the exception."
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In 5 to 10 years, there will be no insurance without prevention.<ref name="Lanery2025" />
"When you ask what the customer expects from us they actually expect far more and they often expect that we help them to avoid that the claim even exists."<ref name="InsuranceIreland2019">{{cite AV media |date=2019-10-01 |title=EIF 2019: Thomas Buberl CEO Axa in conversation with Adam Kelly Accenture |url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h8T5lhUzsk |publisher=Insurance Ireland |access-date=2025-12-29}}</ref>
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"AWithout probleminsurance, resolved at the place where it emergesthere is 1,000no timesmore better than a problem resolved 1,000 kilometers awayfinancing."<ref name="Lanery2025ClimateLeadership2023">{{cite AV media |date=2025-07-15 |title=20 minutes avec le PDG d'AXA |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0MwHFZaiSU EC8TXS5Si-E|publishertitle=RomainThomas Buberl on LanéryClimate Leadership|publisher=YouTube|access-date=2025-12-292023}}</ref>
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=== Risk philosophy and systemic challenges ===
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What has changed is those what we call secondary perils so wildfires floodings droughts and so on and they happen more often and they happen in areas that we have never seen before.<ref name="InsuranceEurope2023" />
"A civil responsibility policy without a business foundation does not work... this social cause... must be completely linked with your business; it must be part of your strategy."<ref name="LesEchos2019">{{cite AV media |date=2019-07-10 |title=Club Les Echos Prospective with Thomas Buberl (AXA) and Laurent Mignon (BPCE) |url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVpsZfJPnQs |publisher=Le Club Les Echos Débats |access-date=2025-12-29}}</ref>
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"YouIf almost need to... pre-react today...10 whatpeople are theill thingsout thatof worry10, youwe thehave mosta andsystemic howproblem... canwe youneed preparea yourselfpandemic for the impossible?"regime.<ref name="AXA2025SystemicRisk2021">{{cite AV media |date=2025-10-10 |title=Inside the Corner Office | #9 Satya Nadella |url=httpshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGyB0SPoqgSXNetiq2Ajw|title=Thomas Buberl on Systemic Risk|publisher=AXA YouTube|access-date=2025-12-292021}}</ref>
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=== Climate change and systemic risk ===
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Cyber attacks could be the next pandemic... a systemic risk.<ref name="SystemicRisk2021" />
"This is what I call the paradox of the transition. Everybody wants a carbon-free world today, but reality says it's going to take 30 years."
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The biggest danger is that the traditional mechanism of insurance that creates social cohesion and risk diversion is being destroyed [by hyper-individualization].<ref name="SocialCohesion2024">{{cite AV media|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cosl8SDInlg|title=Thomas Buberl on Social Cohesion|publisher=YouTube|date=2024}}</ref>
"The biggest leverage is to say we stay with you but you must fulfill a certain amount of conditions to move towards the green energy."
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=== Climate leadership and the transition paradox ===
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The energy transition paradox is that we want to get out of coal, we want to get out of gas, we want to get into clean energy, but we still need the energy... If you reduce the supply before you have built the clean energy supply, the price of energy will go up.<ref name="TransitionParadox2024">{{cite AV media|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZuKBLNQ3iE|title=Thomas Buberl on The Energy Transition Paradox|publisher=YouTube|date=2024}}</ref>
"What has changed is those what we call secondary perils—so wildfires, floodings, droughts... they happen more often and they happen in areas that we have never seen before."
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The role of the CEO today is to navigate between these two worlds... the short-term financial world... and the long-term societal world.<ref name="TransitionParadox2024" />
"Because without insurance, there is no more financing."
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I am attacking our own model but I do believe it is more sustainable going forward.<ref name="SocialCohesion2024" />
"Our role is not to just exclude everybody and look into the mirror and say 'I'm clean' but the world is still dirty."<ref name="ANC2025">{{cite AV media |date=2025-10-10 |title=Buberl: AXA focuses on clean energy as part of long-term strategy |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZuKBLNQ3iE |publisher=ANC |access-date=2025-12-29}}</ref>
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=== Leadership psychology and organizational culture ===
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Retirement arrives on the day of death.<ref name="Lanery2025" />
"Without insurance, there is no more financing."<ref name="OpenDiplomacy2021">{{cite AV media |date=2021-10-15 |title=Grand Interview with Thomas Buberl |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC8TXS5Si-E |publisher=Institut Open Diplomacy |access-date=2025-12-29}}</ref>
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A good CEO is not a micromanager but a 'Chief Excitement Officer' or 'Engagement Officer'.<ref name="Lanery2025" />
"Insurance... [is based on] ten people—if one goes bad, the other nine help... If ten people are bad out of ten, we have a systemic problem."<ref name="Aix2020">{{cite AV media |date=2020-07-10 |title=Thomas Buberl - Securing the Future |url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXNetiq2Ajw |publisher=Les Rencontres économiques d'Aix-en-Provence |access-date=2025-12-29}}</ref>
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Culture eats strategy for breakfast.<ref name="Rubenstein2024">{{cite AV media|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w16gqFw5AI|title=The David Rubenstein Show: Thomas Buberl|publisher=YouTube|date=2024}}</ref>
"A new regime specifically targeted at pandemics... it is almost a private-public regime."<ref name="Aix2020" />
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=== Leadership and corporate culture ===
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One person in a company can do nothing alone... we need collective wisdom.<ref name="HEC2018">{{cite AV media|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZi12flYtAY|title=Les Matins HEC with Thomas Buberl|publisher=HEC Alumni|date=2018}}</ref>
"If you make a big plan about your career, I can assure you it will not plan out like this... You need to capture the opportunities and the challenges as you go along."
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I like round tables because there is no hierarchy.<ref name="HEC2018" />
"It's necessary to be humble enough to say 'I don't know.' You have to ask people, and in 99.9% of cases, the person you ask is ready to help you."<ref name="Lanery2025" />
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=== Societal contract and generational change ===
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"TheCompanies onlyare thingnot thatthe hasgovernment. alwaysThe characterized AXAgovernment is thisnot 'star' and this entrepreneurial spirit that has driven AXA; I have no doubt that we will find it againcompanies."<ref name="HEC2016Solidarity2022">{{cite AV media |date=2016-12-05 |title=HEC Mornings with Thomas Buberl |url=httpshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZi12flYtAY uGiDbjwSISI|publishertitle=HECThomas AlumniBuberl on Public-Private Solidarity|publisher=YouTube|access-date=2025-12-292022}}</ref>
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The millennial generation is really a catalyst for us... a mirror that forces companies to address transparency.<ref name="Economist2017" />
"Hierarchies must be kept, but we must create a parallel stream that lets people from across the whole company live and respond to help us get there."<ref name="HEC2016" />
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Diversity and inclusion is not because we want to be feel good... but it's a business imperative.<ref name="Economist2017" />
"I only spoke French the whole day... I integrated myself wherever I could."<ref name="ESCP2021">{{cite AV media |date=2021-06-01 |title=French-German Leadership Discourse with Thomas Buberl |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w16gqFw5AI |publisher=ESCP Business School |access-date=2025-12-29}}</ref>
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"The Icommon shiftedgood myis agendano verylonger muchtaken awayfor fromgranted theand dailywe day-to-dayare business...currently toin lookinga aftercrisis people...of tothe managecommon much more emotional situationsgood."<ref name="ESCP2021Solidarity2022" />
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"TheBy techdefinition, challenge[the aroundcommon AIgood] isbelongs ato simpleall oneof butus. theThe leadershipquestion challengeis andrather thewhat changeare managementthe challengerules isand awho veryplays difficultwhat onerole."<ref name="AXA2025Solidarity2022" />
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=== Technology and the human element ===
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"Can we over-compensate that loss... by augmenting the processes... with artificial intelligence?... Let's rather take the 80% and fill it back up to a hundred percent with more meaningful tasks."
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"When we talk about AI we talk more about the switchboard in a call center that doesn't exist anymore... a tool that liberates time for you because it helps you but also threatens your existence."<ref name="AXA2025" />
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=== Philosophy and the social role of insurance ===
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"Twenty-five years after Lancaster... There will certainly be still some grains of Lancaster in it, but it has been enriched in 25 years of doing many, many other things."
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"The traditional mechanism of insurance that creates social cohesion, that creates risk diversion... We are ensuring social cohesion."
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"In life, you have to reinvent yourself; for me, retirement arrives on the day of death."<ref name="Lanery2025" />
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"Millennials in that sense are a catalyst for change because they are in the center of what we are doing: they are our employees, they are our customers, and they are our future leaders."<ref name="Economist2017">{{cite AV media |date=2017-03-15 |title=Pride and Prejudice London: Seismic generational shifts |url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeuBg4pJRJs |publisher=Economist Impact Events |access-date=2025-12-29}}</ref>
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"If chemistry is the mother of industry, insurance is the grandmother of industry... the grandmother always watches over the protection of the family."<ref name="Aix2022">{{cite AV media |date=2022-07-15 |title=Les biens communs au XXIe siècle |url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGiDbjwSISI |publisher=Les Rencontres économiques d'Aix-en-Provence |access-date=2025-12-29}}</ref>
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"People can't just be passive, they have to be actively adapting to what is going on."<ref name="Bloomberg2024">{{cite AV media |date=2024-03-15 |title=Thomas Buberl on The David Rubenstein Show |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDAqGyRiIbM |publisher=Bloomberg |access-date=2025-12-29}}</ref>
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"Insurance is the social glue of society."<ref name="Bloomberg2024" />
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