Building a Future-Ready Insurance Platform for AXA Egypt

A System Stuck in the Past

By 2023, AXA Egypt had grown into one of the country’sleading insurance providers, serving over a million customers across General,Life, Health, and Micro-insurance. But beneath the surface of this modernoperation was a decades-old system quietly slowing everything down. AXA’s coreLife Insurance platform—built in the 1990s—was becoming more of a liabilitythan an asset.

The monolithic, client-server application had not aged well.Scaling was a challenge, customer-facing performance was sluggish, and the entire business wastethered to overnight batch processes that delayed access to critical data.Even small feature updates required long development cycles, and as newertalent entered the workforce, maintaining the legacy stack became increasinglydifficult.

For AXA, it was clear: if they wanted to deliver seamless digital experiences and agile operations aligned with their growth strategy, their core system needed a complete transformation. But replacing a mission-critical system is never a one-step process—it demands precision, planning, and the right partner.

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Why AXA Partnered with Sumerge

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AXA wasn’t simply looking to digitize—they were looking tomodernize strategically.They needed more than a vendor; they needed a partner who could deliver notonly the technology but also the architecture, governance, and long-term visionto future-proof their business.

Sumerge was selected because of our comprehensive ecosystemapproach: from architecture and DevOps to quality assurance and implementation,we provided dedicated experts across every function of the delivery lifecycle.This full-spectrum capability gave AXA the confidence that their transformationwould be handled end-to-end—with foresight, not just code.

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Challenges Surpassed: Reverse Engineering and Rebuilding

Modernizing a 30-year-old system is never as simple aslifting and shifting. The original core platform had little to no documentation—business logic, workflows, and decision rules were buried deep within the legacy codebase.

Our first step was what we internally called Phase Zero—aconsulting and discovery phase focused on extracting knowledge from the systemitself. Through reverse engineering, our team mapped out nearly 80% of thebusiness workflows, working closely with AXA’s internal teams to validateassumptions and build a complete understanding of how the system operated.

Rather than pursue a big-bang replacement, we designed a phased modernizationstrategy, one that would allow each module to be rebuilt, integrated, andtested while the legacy system continued to function. This minimizedoperational risk while ensuring business continuity—a crucial consideration fora company with millions of active policies and a high customer servicethreshold.

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Engineering a Modern Core
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Once discovery was complete, we transitioned to execution.The new platform was built on a cloud-native,microservices-based architecture, enabling modular development, rapidscalability, and easier maintenance. We introduced Kafka-based event-driven processing,replacing the legacy batch jobs with real-time data handling capabilities. Thisshift alone brought immediate benefits to operational efficiency, customerresponsiveness, and backend processing.

DevOps pipelines and test automation frameworks wereembedded from day one, allowing AXA to accelerate delivery cycles and reducemanual intervention across the board. And crucially, every module was designedto run in parallel with the legacy system—ensuring smooth migration andreal-world validation at each step.

Throughout the process, Sumerge worked together with AXA’s internal IT and business teams, providing enablement, upskilling, and alignment with the company’s long-term digital roadmap.

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I’m very proud of what our team accomplished. The complexity was immense, but we delivered a solid, future-ready platform.

Mohamed Nour, CTO, Sumerge

Overcoming the Toughest Obstacles

The complexity of the legacy system presented several corechallenges. First, the sheer depth and entanglement of business rules meant that every piece of logic had to be carefully untangled and revalidated beforebeing migrated.

Next came the challenge of coexistence.Maintaining data integrity between the old and new systems required carefulsynchronization mechanisms and validation layers, ensuring no customer ortransaction was lost in transition.

And finally, there was the human element—change management. AXA’s teams had to adapt not only to new tools but to new ways of thinking. Ourdelivery approach emphasized transparency, documentation, and collaboration,ensuring everyone stayed aligned throughout the process.

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• Real-Time Operations: Kafka-based architecture eliminated batch delays and enabled live data access, improving responsiveness.
• AcceleratedDelivery: DevOps practices and test automation cut release cycles significantly, allowing faster rollout of new features.
• Future-Proof Architecture: Cloud-native microservices provide the scalability and modularity required to support innovation.
• Zero Downtime Transition: Dual-system coexistence ensured business continuity during phased rollout.
• Team Enablement: AXA’s internal teams were trained and equipped to manage and extend the new platform independently.
• Customer Experience Uplift: Improved backend speed and frontend capabilities contribute to a smoother, more digital-first journey.

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While the modernization journey is still ongoing, the successful completion of Phase one has laid a rock-solid foundation for the future. AXA Egypt is now able to scale its digital capabilities, optimize internal processes, and deliver the kind of seamless, personalized experiences customers expect.

For Sumerge, this project reflects our core belief: thateven the most complex legacy systems can be transformed—with the rightstrategy, the right technology, and the right partnership.

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AXA Egypt is one of the leading insurance providers in the Egyptian market and part of the global AXA Group, a worldwide leader in insurance and financial protection services operating across more than 50 countries.

With a strong focus on innovation, customer-centricity, and digital transformation, AXA Egypt delivers a wide range of life, health, and general insurance solutions designed to empower individuals and businesses with greater financial security and peace of mind. By continuously investing in modern technologies and seamless customer experiences, AXA Egypt is redefining the future of insurance through agile, data-driven, and digitally enabled services.