The AXIS Story
The AXIS actuarial system was originally developed and marketed by Gilliland Gold Young Consulting Inc. (GGY) founded in 1989 in Toronto, Canada. The AXIS system and GGY were acquired by Moody's Analytics in March 2016.
GGY focused on developing and marketing the AXIS system, a microcomputer-based software product created by Phil Gold prior to 1989 while working at a reinsurance company in Toronto. Phil together with Dave Gilliland and Bill Young formed GGY to continue development of the system and to market it to the life insurance industry. Speed, ease of use, flexibility, functionality and integrity of code are at the core of GGY's system philosophy. The company committed itself to a customer focused business model, emphasizing excellence of the system quality, as well as exemplary and comprehensive client support, all included as part of the standard product licensing and maintenance agreement.
In the early years, the system was initially a pricing and product development tool, used primarily by smaller insurers and by reinsurers for traditional insurance business. However, with the early addition of additional modules for annuity, universal life, and disability insurance products, and the modeling of actual assets and reinvestments, and later the incorporation of powerful seriatim modeling capabilities, it became a comprehensive actuarial solution applicable to all standard actuarial applications for any size of company. Specifically, with the support of the Canadian GAAP financial framework introduced in 1992, and of the subsequent new Canadian actuarial standards of practice, the AXIS system became a market leading solution for valuation and projection of future financial results, supporting multiple principles-based and traditional financial reporting frameworks.
GGY adopted a unique approach to the design and support of the AXIS actuarial system, in several respects. The system was and still is a ready-to-use software solution, fully programmed by the vendor, and continuously upgraded to meet the needs of new clients and changing regulatory and industry practice. Each new release is available to all clients and includes all the enhancements added to the system so that the flexibility and usefulness of the system continues to grow for all clients over time. This approach to the support of our product continues today as part of the Moody's Analytics suite of solutions.
Other significant milestones in the history of GGY and AXIS include:
- 1996 - DataLink module supporting Seriatim Processing
- 1998 - Full conversion of the system to Windows-based solution
- 2000 - Integrated distributed processing of AXIS calculations over multiple processors
- 2001 - Earnings By Source (EBS) module released for Regular Life
- 2004 - Stochastic modeling capabilities including Block processing
- 2005 - Integrated Grid management for distributed processing (GridLink)
- 2010 - Hedge Projection Module to model Variable Annuity Hedging programs
- 2011 - Transition from desktop to centralized modeling environment (EnterpriseLink)
- 2012 - New cloud-based hosting and batch execution solutions through GGY Cloud Services
- 2015 - FormulaLink module to improve flexibility and debugging of Formula Table input
While the AXIS system was developed by a Canadian team, and initially marketed primarily in Canada, it was also widely adopted by reinsurers operating in multiple countries around the globe, and it quickly developed a presence in parts of the Pacific Rim as well as Canada. After concluding a joint venture with a US based consulting firm in the early years, GGY expanded the capabilities of the system to address US Statutory and GAAP reporting requirements. This enabled a broader North American marketing initiative and enabled steady growth in the use and reliance on AXIS solutions by US based insurers and reinsurers starting in 2005.
At the time of the acquisition of GGY by Moody's Analytics in 2016, our client companies numbered over 170, distributed mainly over Canada, US and the Asia Pacific region.