The Oman Insurance Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, insurance associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Oman's insurance industry.
- Oman’s insurance sector is small, crowded, fragmented and not rapidly growing.
- Conditions have been challenging for many players in 2010-2011, with a number of the leading companies ceding market share and absolute size in order to boost profitability.
- Many of the catalysts for growth that exist elsewhere in the region, such as takaful, have been absent from Oman.
Oman’s insurance sector does not compare favourably with its peers in other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Twenty-one companies, including 10 local groups, are competing for total premiums that are still less than US$700mn per annum. As is the case in the rest of the region, none of the local companies have the benefits of economies of scale, nor, with the clear exception of al-Ahlia, which is an affiliate of global non-life major RSA Insurance, are any owned by major shareholders that have a clear competence in insurance. In most countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), small local groups tend to focus exclusively on non-life lines (particularly the ‘basic’ areas such as motor and home/contents insurance). Oman is unusual in that most of the local groups are composite insurers. Even al-Ahlia offers group life products. The regulatory regime dates back only to 2004. As yet, Oman’s insurance sector has not participated in the growth of takaful – a key factor in the expansion of the much larger industries in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
A strength is that the market is clearly open to foreign players. Majors that are present include AXA Gulf, Chartis and, since October last year (through its purchase of Compagnie Libanaise d’Assurance), Zurich, as well as MetLife ALCIO. LIC and New India are serving Indians who live and work in Oman. There are also offshoots of much smaller firms based in the UAE and Lebanon.
However, this only adds to the competitive pressure. In the non-life segment especially, but also in the life segment, it is easy to identify metrics that are moving sideways or even backwards. The challenges of life insurers have been compounded by volatile local and regional financial markets. Looking forward, we cannot see any obvious reasons why non-life penetration or life density should rise from what are fairly low levels.
Source: Noor Takaful Social Media
- Oman’s insurance sector is small, crowded, fragmented and not rapidly growing.
- Conditions have been challenging for many players in 2010-2011, with a number of the leading companies ceding market share and absolute size in order to boost profitability.
- Many of the catalysts for growth that exist elsewhere in the region, such as takaful, have been absent from Oman.
Oman’s insurance sector does not compare favourably with its peers in other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Twenty-one companies, including 10 local groups, are competing for total premiums that are still less than US$700mn per annum. As is the case in the rest of the region, none of the local companies have the benefits of economies of scale, nor, with the clear exception of al-Ahlia, which is an affiliate of global non-life major RSA Insurance, are any owned by major shareholders that have a clear competence in insurance. In most countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), small local groups tend to focus exclusively on non-life lines (particularly the ‘basic’ areas such as motor and home/contents insurance). Oman is unusual in that most of the local groups are composite insurers. Even al-Ahlia offers group life products. The regulatory regime dates back only to 2004. As yet, Oman’s insurance sector has not participated in the growth of takaful – a key factor in the expansion of the much larger industries in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
A strength is that the market is clearly open to foreign players. Majors that are present include AXA Gulf, Chartis and, since October last year (through its purchase of Compagnie Libanaise d’Assurance), Zurich, as well as MetLife ALCIO. LIC and New India are serving Indians who live and work in Oman. There are also offshoots of much smaller firms based in the UAE and Lebanon.
However, this only adds to the competitive pressure. In the non-life segment especially, but also in the life segment, it is easy to identify metrics that are moving sideways or even backwards. The challenges of life insurers have been compounded by volatile local and regional financial markets. Looking forward, we cannot see any obvious reasons why non-life penetration or life density should rise from what are fairly low levels.
Source: Noor Takaful Social Media
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