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Kuwait: Insurers back proposal for Insurance Authority

Source: Middle East Insurance Review | Mar 2018

The insurance industry is backing a proposal for the establishment of an Insurance Supervisory Authority (ISA) to regulate the sector.
 
   The proposal is in a draft of a new insurance law presented by lawmaker Mr Askar Al-Enezi, seeking to modernise the existing law which has been in effect since 1961.
 
   Insurers point to the need to establish a body to work on a comprehensive restructuring of the industry which faces several problems, including market saturation, lack of insurance awareness and non-technical underwriting, reported Al Jarida.
 
   The Chairman of the Kuwait Insurance Federation, Mr Abdul Razzaq Al-Wahaib, said that the Federation had insisted, in previous meetings with the Minister of Commerce and Industry, on the need to establish a specialised body to regulate the insurance sector.
 
   He added that the proposal of Deputy Al-Enezi to establish an insurance commission is not new. The idea was proposed several years ago, but no concrete steps have been taken to form the body. 
 
   The proposal was rejected by the government on the grounds that the country needed to rationalise spending instead of burdening public coffers with new expenses for the establishment of an independent body.
 
   Mr Yousef Al-Saad, CEO of Al-Ahlia Insurance, said the insurance sector is one of the most important and oldest sectors in Kuwait. However, it has not received sufficient attention from the government for several years.
 
   He pointed out that there should be an independent budget for the work of the proposed ISA in order to maintain its independence as in the case of the Capital Markets Authority.
 
   He called on members of the National Assembly to take serious steps to pass the new insurance law.
 
   Mr Khalil Al Shami, CEO of Boubyan Takaful, said the sector is important and needs to be more closely supervised because it holds a huge amount of funds which comprise capital from investors as well as premiums paid by policyholders. 
 
   He said the insurance sector should be viewed as equally important as the banking sector, which is sponsored and supported by the Central Bank of Kuwait.
 
   Mr Hussein Al-Attal, CEO of First Takaful, pointed out that the government should adopt an insurance culture and see to the insurance of public assets, similar to practices in the oil sector.
 
   The insurance sector is at present overseen by the Insurance Department of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. M 
 
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