The insurance industry has shown positive results for the six months ended 30 June 2021, with gross premiums/contributions generated in the domestic market amounting to BHD143.7m ($381m), up 6.7% y-o-y, said the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB).
Renewing reinsurance contracts for 2022 is not an easy matter, given the large compensation costs incurred by reinsurers over the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and significant scale of natural disasters, said a senior executive.
The price of the new mandatory health insurance policy for expatriates working in the private sector in Kuwait will be KWD130 ($430) a year per person when the scheme commences, according to Health Assurance Hospitals Company (Dhaman) CEO Thamer Arab. Dhaman is providing the coverage.
From 2022, Lebanese insurers will collect premiums on health insurance in ‘fresh dollars’ only as the sector has been struggling to cope with the collapse of the Lebanese pound since 2019, said the Association of Insurance Companies in Lebanon (ACAL).
The Capital Market Authority (CMA) has announced the launch of six digital services to facilitate the delivery of services to insurance policyholders, investors and other stakeholders.
Road accidents in Tunisia in 2021 until the first week of December have resulted in more than 400 fatalities and injured more than 6,100, according to the National Observatory of Road Safety.
The Insurance and Private Pension Regulation and Supervision Agency (SEDDK) has set out new minimum capital requirements for various branches of insurance.
DIFC-based Kay International, a boutique reinsurance intermediary and underwriting management agency, has established a wholly-owned subsidiary in the US with the aim of expanding its facultative and treaty reinsurance placement services to Latin America and the Caribbean countries.
Local health insurance prices are set to rise by more than 8% in 2022, as insurance companies seek to counter claims inflation and the impact of other costs, said insurance industry executives.
Global
Extreme weather events in 2021, including a deep winter freeze, floods, severe thunderstorms, heatwaves and a major hurricane, resulted in annual insured losses from Nat CATs estimated at $105bn, the fourth highest since 1970, according to Swiss Re Institute’s preliminary sigma estimates.
Fitch Ratings expects reinsurance rates to increase by more than 10% in CAT-related lines of business when contracts are renewed in January 2022, which supports the improving sector outlook for 2022, said the ratings agency in a recent commentary.
AM Best expects insurance companies to be able to absorb the losses from the recent and deadly US tornado outbreak across central and southern states last December. However, supply chain challenges and inflationary pressures may exacerbate insurance losses, the ratings agency said in a recent report titled ‘Tornado Outbreak Adds to 2021 Insurance Losses, but Appears to Be Earnings Event’.
Takaful
Total gross contributions of takaful firms in Bahrain reached BHD43.76m ($116.4m) in the first half of 2021, showing a marginal dip from the BHD43.89m generated in 1H2020, against 6.7% growth rate the insurance market has registered in the same period, according to a report issued by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB).
Gross takaful contributions in Egypt reached EGP3.37bn ($214m) by the end of September 2021 against EGP4.99bn achieved in the same period of the past year, a decline of 32.6%.
Three takaful operators have received approval from the Supervisory Authority of Insurance and Social Welfare (ACAPS) to launch their operations in Morocco last month.
Damaan Islamic Insurance (Beema), a subsidiary of Qatar Insurance (QIC) group, will list its shares on the Qatari bourse, QIC said in a stock exchange filing.