The first half of 2026 presents a clear divergence between growth and earnings quality for Oman's listed insurance sector, according to BADRI Management Consultancy, an international actuarial and risk consultancy.
In its report titled “Listed Insurance Industry Performance Analysis – H1 2026”, BADRI said that the combined insurance revenue across the eight listed insurers rose by 11% year-on-year to OMR384m ($1bn), up from OMR347m in 1H2025. The eight companies are Al Madina Takaful, Arabia Falcon Insurance, Dhofar Insurance, Muscat Insurance, Liva Group, Oman United Insurance, Oman Qatar Insurance and Takaful Oman Insurance.
Most of that growth came from the market leaders. The top three insurers by revenue—namely, Liva, Dhofar Insurance and Oman Qatar Insurance—grew by 13% on a combined basis to OMR307m, while the remaining five companies expanded by 4.2% to OMR77.9m.
Growth in absolute terms was concentrated in the largest insurer Liva, which added almost OMR33m of revenue and grew by 17%. Conventional insurers grew by 12% and outpaced the two takaful operators—Al Madina Takaful and Takaful Oman Insurance—which grew by 3.6% combined.
Profits
The aggregate profits after tax of the eight insurers fell by 8% to OMR16.4m in 1H2026 from OMR17.8m in the corresponding half of 2025, and total comprehensive income was down by 6%. The decline was driven mainly by the largest insurer Liva, whose profit roughly halved.
Excluding Liva, the other seven insurers grew their combined profit after tax by 34%, which points to a healthier underlying trend. Results varied widely across the sector. The strongest improvement came from Oman United Insurance, which tripled their profit to OMR3.3Om on higher investment returns.
At an aggregate level, takaful profitability plunged by around 80%, compared to broadly flat growth of 1.5% for conventional insurers.
Core insurance profitability weakened more broadly than the headline profit decline suggests. Aggregate insurance service results fell by 28% to OMR15.3m, and the insurance service ratio dropped from 6.1% to 4.0%.
Four of the eight insurers reported negative insurance results. Even so, all eight companies remained profitable on an overall basis, which points to the growing role of investment income. Net investment income rose by 8.5% to OMR27.0m in 1H2026 from OMR18.6m in the first half of 2025. Despite this, the weighted-average profit margin still slipped to 4.3% from 5.1%, which shows that investment gains offset only part of the weaker underwriting result.
Turning topline growth to bottomline gains
Overall, 1H2026 shows a sector that is growing its top line but finding it harder to turn that growth into profit. The main theme is a growing reliance on investment income to offset underwriting margins that are narrowing under rising claims costs, competitive pricing and, for the smaller players in particular, limited scale.
Looking ahead
The second half will depend largely on underwriting discipline, including tighter risk selection and technical pricing, active management of the loss component, and continued work on reinsurance structures to protect the net result. Companies that combine prudent capital and investment management with stronger underwriting are better placed to protect profitability as competition and climate-related claims volatility increase over the rest of 2026.