Africa Specialty Risks (ASR) has appointed Mr Joseph Kotran as Head of Business Development, Middle East and Turkiye.
As the war in the Middle East escalates, US President Donald Trump has ordered the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to provide sweeping political risk insurance and unspecified guarantees for maritime trade.
(Re)insurers in the Middle East will be closely monitoring the conflict taking place in the region as it spreads across the countries in the GCC and the Levant region.
The ongoing military conflict in the Middle East, that began on 28 February, may have implications for energy markets, shipping, inflation risks and financial conditions, but everything depends on how long it lasts.
S&P Global Ratings (S&P) expects the conflict in the Middle East to inject additional uncertainty and earnings volatility into global reinsurers' 2026 results, particularly within specialty lines.
S&P Global Ratings (S&P) says that it considers the gravity of the military conflict in the Middle East to have moved from high to severe in its pre-defined scenarios and consequently, the potential for events to weaken credit quality across sectors has increased.
The situation across Middle East shipping lanes has escalated sharply, with substantial operational, navigational, and insurance implications for global trade as a result of the military conflict in the region that began on 28 February.
The biggest global repercussions of the ongoing military conflict in the Middle East include the increased risks of terrorism, spikes in reinsurance prices, fluctuations in financial markets and energy prices, and hikes in compensation costs, according to Mr Khaled Abdel-Sadek, a Vice Chairman of the Insurers Federation of Egypt (IFE).
Many of the world's leading maritime insurers have cancelled war risk cover for vessels entering the Persian Gulf, amid escalated military conflict in the Middle East.
The ongoing Iran-Israel military conflict that erupted on 28 February 2026 followed weeks of mounting tensions. But what began as a highly anticipated conflict has now surpassed expectations in both intensity and impact.