A technology risk assessment that helps organizations identify, measure, and manage key risks and controls insurers evaluate during placement and renewal.
This assessment captures risk control nuance beyond traditional yes/no applications and translates it into a structured risk profile and underwriting-ready narrative. This supports more efficient submissions, a clearer renewal strategy, and year-over-year control improvement.
What you’ll receive after completing the Axis Technology Risk Compass:
- Compass Score: An overall risk control rating
- Compass Report: Category-by-category results across 8 control domains, with question-level risk ratings and underwriting “why it matters” insight
- Compass Roadmap: Resources and tools to help you implement stronger controls
The Axis Technology Risk Compass gives you clarity into your current risk posture, actionable improvements for your internal controls, a stronger story to tell underwriters, a more stable long-term insurance cost trajectory, and fewer disruptive claims.
We do not sell or rent personal information; if you request quotations or coverage terms, information may be shared with insurers/underwriters and other parties involved in quoting/placement as needed.
Get Access to the Axis Technology Risk CompassAxis Technology Overview
At Axis Insurance, we support growth-stage and public technology companies by translating operational complexity into governable, insurable risk. Our process combines a secure, SaaS-based platform, The Axis Technology Risk Compass, with a senior advisory review to assess your controls across eight areas insurers scrutinize most. After you submit your request, a senior Axis advisor will provide access to the assessment and schedule the review once your assessment is complete.
The Benefits for Your Organization
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Stronger Internal Controls
- The assessment highlights strengths and gaps, allowing your team to proactively enhance policies, processes, and governance frameworks.
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Fewer Disruptive Claims
- Stronger controls reduce the frequency and severity of incidents, lowering operational downtime and financial losses.
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A More Resilient Business
- Resilience is built through disciplined controls, clear ownership, and continuous improvement. The assessment supports continuous improvement that strengthens long-term organizational performance.
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Better Insurance Outcomes
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Underwriters respond favorably to organizations that can clearly demonstrate robust controls. Better clarity leads to:
- more competitive pricing,
- broader coverage,
- fewer exclusions, and
- faster quoting.
- This reduces dependence on market cycles and strengthens your negotiating position.
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Underwriters respond favorably to organizations that can clearly demonstrate robust controls. Better clarity leads to:
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A Management-Ready Risk Profile
- The assessment produces a board-ready report that can be shared internally to align leadership around strategic risk priorities, formatted for leadership review and audit/risk committee reporting.
Building Resilient Organizations Through Risk Assessment
Our process begins with one core principle: organizations make their best insurance and risk-management decisions when they fully understand their exposures. That is why our work starts with a structured risk assessment. This allows us to identify the operational, technological, contractual, and governance risks that have the greatest potential to disrupt your business.
Traditional insurance applications often fall short. They pose highly technical questions but limit responses to simple “yes” or “no” answers, leaving no room to provide context or demonstrate the strength of internal controls. This creates friction for clients and uncertainty for underwriters, resulting in unnecessary follow-up questions, a drawn-out underwriting process, and less accurate pricing that may not reflect the organization’s actual risk profile or capabilities.
Our assessment solves this problem. It allows organizations to fully articulate their security posture, governance practices, operational safeguards, certifications (such as ISO 27001 or SOC 2), and unique risk-management strategies in a structured way that underwriters can easily understand. This level of clarity leads to better outcomes for the client: fewer underwriting questions, faster quoting, stronger underwriting confidence, and better terms. Our Axis Technology Risk Compass is designed not simply to score risks, but to give you visibility into the strength of your internal controls and highlight where targeted improvements can materially reduce the likelihood and severity of claims.
It also benefits organizations directly. Over time, organizations that invest in stronger controls experience fewer interruptions, fewer financial losses, and greater operational resilience. Many clients discover control gaps they hadn’t considered or risk areas that had unintentionally fallen off the radar. The assessment provides a clear, actionable snapshot of where controls stand today and a roadmap for where they should evolve. Axis supports this improvement process with framework tools, whitepapers, templates, internal-process guidance, and targeted best practices, helping your organization continuously strengthen resilience.
This matters because insurance premiums are influenced by two forces;
- 1) Market Cycles, which are outside anyone’s control,
- 2) Your organization’s individual risk profile and claims history, which are very much within your control.
Market conditions will continue to rise and fall, but organizations that commit to disciplined risk management and continuous improvement are better positioned to maintain stability and avoid the volatility that comes with being at the mercy of the insurance cycle. Our goal is to help clients build that long-term stability. By understanding your risks, improving internal controls, and reducing preventable claims, you develop a stronger negotiating position with insurers and a more resilient business overall. The assessment tool is the starting point for navigating that journey: a practical, structured way to understand where you are today and what steps will strengthen your organization for the future.
Beyond this, for cross-border operations, the assessment helps capture jurisdictional complexity (contractual obligations, regulatory requirements, vendor dependencies, and cross-border data flows) in a way that supports a consistent underwriting narrative across regions. For IPO readiness and public-company environments, the assessment supports stronger governance discipline by reinforcing escalation expectations, material change/event decisioning, and risk reporting structures aligned to leadership and audit/risk committee oversight.
Axis Proprietary Risk Methodology
Our industry-leading process combines a secure, SaaS-based platform workflow with a senior advisory review, structured in two parts with two steps each. We assess your key risk controls then validate control maturity. From there, we prioritize risks by severity, likelihood, and operational dependency based on your businesses characteristics and build a practical improvement roadmap supported by best practice suggestions, and a suite of tools and resources. This translates your results into a clearer underwriting narrative and improved business resiliency.
Part 1: The Axis Technology Risk Compass
Step 1: Risk Compass: Risk Assessment (Approx. 30 minutes)
This is a multiple-choice, self-guided assessment designed to capture the depth and nuance of your internal controls in a way traditional insurance applications cannot.
You will:
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Complete a structured series of questions across:
- Contractual Controls
- Cybersecurity, Technical & Crime Controls
- Data Backup & Business Continuity Controls
- Third-Party, Vendor & Supply Chain Controls
- Privacy, Data Security & API Controls
- Intellectual Property & Content Governance Controls
- People, Employment Practices & Insider Controls
- Artificial Intelligence Tools & Controls
- Highlight certifications such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, or other frameworks your business relies on.
- Receive an instant, board-ready risk assessment report summarizing strengths, vulnerabilities, and recommended areas of focus.
Your progress is saved automatically, and all data is securely encrypted so you can stop and return anytime.
Step 2: Risk Compass: Insurance Application (Approx. 15 minutes)
When ready to apply for insurance, the platform automatically pre-populates your insurance application with your assessment responses, eliminating redundancy and speeding up the application process.
You will:
- Review and confirm answers already captured in Step 1,
- Add a small number of supplemental underwriting details,
- Finalize the application in a fraction of the time of a traditional paper form.
Assessment data is treated as confidential business information, access is restricted to authorized personnel supporting your engagement, and all inputs remain securely stored, streamlining future renewals. Data retention and deletion are managed in accordance with internal governance and applicable privacy requirements.
Part 2: Advisory Review and Market Positioning
Step 3: Advisor Review and Risk Prioritization
An Axis senior advisor reviews the results with your team to validate context, confirm priorities, and align the improvement roadmap with your operational realities and growth plans, supported by a suite of tools and resources designed to help you strengthen your controls.
Step 4: Placement Strategy and Strategic Positioning
We consolidate your risk controls and implemented improvements into an underwriter-ready risk profile and detailed application package, supported by clear documentation and evidence. This structured narrative reduces follow-up questions, streamlines the quoting process, and supports consistent program continuity as the business evolves.
A Smarter Way to Manage Risk
By combining a structured assessment, tailored insights, and technology-driven efficiency with proactive tools and resources, the Axis Technology Risk Compass helps your organization stay ahead of emerging risks while putting you in a stronger position at placement.
The Axis Technology Risk Compass gives you:
- clarity into your current risk posture,
- actionable improvements for your internal controls,
- a stronger story to tell underwriters,
- a more stable long-term insurance cost trajectory, and
- fewer disruptive claims.
Frequently Asked Questions
The assessment works best when it is coordinated by an executive who can pull in targeted input from the right functions. In most technology organizations, that executive is typically the CEO, CFO, CISO/Head of IT, COO, or another senior leader. We recommend involving security/IT for control maturity and resilience practices, operations for process dependencies and vendor oversight, and legal/compliance for contractual and governance considerations. The goal is not perfect “policy language,” but an accurate view of how controls operate in practice so the resulting risk profile and roadmap are meaningful and defensible.
Most organizations complete the risk assessment in approximately 30 minutes. If you choose to proceed to the insurance application workflow, the follow-on application step typically takes about 15 minutes because the platform pre-populates information already captured in the assessment. If multiple stakeholders are contributing, or if your organization has more complex operations (international footprint, regulated customers, public-company governance), the process may take longer to complete, but your progress is saved so you can pause and return at any time. After completion, many organizations also schedule a 30-minute principal-led review to validate context and align priorities with the operating plan and renewal timeline.
The assessment is designed to capture the depth and nuance of your internal controls through structured questions rather than forcing simple yes/no answers. That said, the process is most efficient when the person completing the assessment has access to basic information about your technology and governance posture, high-level security and resilience practices, vendor management approach, and any key operational or compliance requirements that shape how your organization manages risk. If certain details are owned by other functions, you can complete what you know, pause, and return once you have the right inputs.
No. The risk assessment is appropriate for both existing Axis clients and organizations evaluating Axis as a risk advisor and insurance broker. If you are exploring a new relationship, the assessment allows Axis to understand your operating environment and emerging risks in a structured way, and it gives you a clear internal snapshot of control strengths and gaps before any placement decisions are made. If you later request quotations, the same structure helps present your controls to underwriters more clearly.
Completing the Risk Compass does not bind coverage. The assessment is designed to produce a management-ready risk profile and roadmap, and it can also streamline the underwriting process by helping prepare a clearer, more complete submission narrative. If you choose to proceed with quotations or placement, the platform can support an insurance application step by pre-populating information already captured in the assessment; however, coverage is only bound when you instruct Axis to proceed and an insurer confirms binding terms in writing.
Axis treats assessment information as confidential and does not sell, trade, or rent personal information. If you request quotations, indications of premium, policy terms, availability of coverage, or binding of insurance, Axis may share the information necessary to provide those services with insurance companies, underwriters, and other parties involved in the quoting/placement process, as outlined in Axis’s Privacy Policy.
Yes, you can navigate to your profile to view assessments in progress. Our platform is designed to be efficient and self-guided, and your progress is saved so you can stop and return at any time. Once completed, the platform generates an instant, board-ready risk assessment report summarizing strengths, vulnerabilities, and recommended areas of focus, and it can carry your responses forward into the application workflow to reduce duplication.
The assessment is built to capture and organize the kinds of complexity that often emerge with cross-border operations and capital markets exposure. For international operations, it can help uncover cross-jurisdiction contractual and regulatory considerations, vendor and supply-chain dependencies, and cross-border data governance in a way that supports a consistent underwriting narrative. For IPO readiness and public-company environments, it supports stronger governance by reinforcing incident escalation discipline, material change/material event decisioning, and risk reporting structures that align with audit/risk committee expectations. Following completion, a principal-led Axis review is used to validate context and align priorities with your growth plan, renewal timeline, and governance requirements.
The Axis Technology Risk Compass is not a formal audit, certification, or legal opinion. It is a structured risk assessment designed to help your organization understand control maturity, identify priority improvements, and prepare a clearer underwriting narrative.