Arab Insurance Market Review

There is little information on the arab insurance market due to
the developing natures of their economies. This is what
arabicinsurance has found so far.

“As a market Insurance premiums in the Middle East are about
US$5.3 billion last year – that’s less than 1% of the global
total, but it’s up 12% on the year before and growth is expected
to continue in the near future: some predict that Middle East
insurance premiums will hit US$44 billion by 2010. Growing
populations and incomes, more stringent and sophisticated
regulation, increasing public awareness, and more and more
insurance products geared specifically to Muslim customers, are
all expected to help propel the industry forward during the
coming decade.”

“Premiums per capita even more pointedly illustrate how much
room there is for growth: Insurance premiums in the UAE averaged
US$310 per person in 2003, US$149 per person in Kuwait and just
US$41 per person in Saudi Arabia. That’s a fraction of the
premiums paid by policyholders in Taiwan, who shelled out an
average of US$1,433 in insurance premiums last year, and in
Singapore, where the per capita average was US$1,620 – not to
mention the premiums earned in highly developed insurance
markets, such as the UK, where the average person paid more than
US$4,000 in premiums last year.”

Currently, the UAE is the biggest insurance market in the GCC,
with US$971 million in premiums last year. But countries such as
Singapore and Taiwan, which have a GDP per capita at about the
same level as the UAE, enjoy much higher insurance premium
levels – US$9 billion and US$32 billion, respectively. With an
insurance penetration rate of just 1.1% of GDP, the Emirates
still have a long way to go to catch up with Singapore’s 7.6%
and Taiwan’s 11.3% penetration.- http://www.itp.net Arab Life
Insurance Market

Experts believe that life insurers in the region should remain
optimistic, in part because of the usual dynamics of increasing
affluence. Swiss Re noted in a recent study that the “demand for
insurance to cover the risks of old age and death increases in
tandem with rising per-capita income,” and the Middle East,
particularly the Gulf countries, have witnessed strong economic
growth during the past few years: from 1998 to 2002, for
example, the UAE saw GDP per capita rise almost 60%; Kuwait,
37%; Oman, about 34%; Bahrain, 26%; and Saudi Arabia, 8%.

The local life insurance industries have risen in parallel in
some of these markets. In Kuwait, for example, life insurance
premiums more than doubled from 1998 to 2002; in the UAE,
premiums rose 45% during that same time period; and in Bahrain
they went up 28%. However, in Saudi Arabia and Oman, life
premiums declined, 4% and 6%, respectively.

In the UAE, where life premiums totalled US$226 million last
year, insurance companies see much room for growth and are
designing products to try to capture the market. The big
insurers are stepping in to help fill that gap: Zurich
International Life, one of the UAE’s biggest life insurers,
recently launched a product here geared specifically towards
high-income expatriates. Some regional players are also making
moves in the same direction. In October, Oman Insurance Company,
another major local player, launched a new capital-guaranteed
savings product in cooperation with Soci?t? G?n?rale and said it
would also offer it in other markets in the region. Arab
Insurance Market Growth

The Arab Insurance Market review, an annual study published by
Bahrain-based Arab Insurance Group (AIG), noted in its most
recent report that GDP in the Middle East and North Africa is
expected to grow by an average of 3.6% annually until 2010,
while the population in the region is estimated to reach 330
million during the next six years, from 282 million last year.

There is huge potential in Saudi Arabia which currently has the
lowest insurance penetration of any market in the world, at just
0.5% of GDP. The world average is 3.8%, while its GCC neighbours
have penetration rates that are more than double Saudi’s: 1.1%
in the UAE, for example, and 1.2% in Oman. The average spending
per person on insurance in Saudi Arabia last year was just
US$41.20 – Premiums per person in Lithuania and Argentina, which
have a GDP per capita close to Saudi Arabia’s, were almost twice
that level.

General insurance accounted for 96% of insurance spending in
Saudi Arabia last year, whereas the average spent on life
insurance was a measly US$1.70 per person. This breakdown
between general and life insurance is particularly dramatic in
Saudi Arabia, but it reflects the larger situation in the
region, where general insurance massively overshadows the life
market. General insurance premiums in the five GCC countries for
which 2003 data is available totalled US$2.2 billion; life
insurance premiums were only US$416 million.