AXA in July 2018 announced its business insurance operations would trade under the new AXA XL brand once the acquisition of XL Group is completed. The master brand AXA remains untouched.

AXA XL will combine existing P&C commercial lines and specialty risks into a new entity. It will include four main business units:

• XL Insurance,
• XL Reinsurance,
• XL Art & Lifestyle, and
• XL Risk Consulting.

The new entity will result from the combination of XL Group, AXA Corporate Solutions, and AXA Art. It is to be led by current XL Group president and COO Greg Hendrick.

The AXA brand was launched in 1990 in insurance markets when the four original French insurance companies (Mutuelles Unies, Drouot, Presence, Assurances du Groupe de Paris) merged. The AXA name itself goes back to 1985; at that time, it stood for a project to create a new global insurance group and for the team that would make it happen.

AXA invested hundreds of millions of Euros starting in the 1990s to build a globally recognized brand. According to Interbrand, it today is the best recognized insurance brand in the world, ahead of Allianz. AXA and Allianz are the only two insurers among the Top 100 brands.