The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) has issued a decision regulating the work of the "Committee for the Protection of Clients and Settlement of Disputes in Insurance".
Decision No 254 of 2025 defines the Committee’s scope of work as reviewing and deciding on disputes between policyholders and beneficiaries, or third parties or those in insurance-related professions, on the one side, and any insurance establishment operating in Egypt. These establishments include insurance and reinsurance companies in all their forms, whether conventional or takaful, as well as specialised medical insurance companies, microinsurance companies, and insurance pools.
The new regulations provide for the implementation of the Unified Insurance Law that was passed in 2024.
Dr Mohamed Farid, FRA Chairman, said the new rules represent a fundamental step to enhance protection for those in the insurance sector, in a way that supports stability and confidence in the system of non-banking financial activities.
He pointed out that the Committee represents a vital tool for enforcing fairness in justice, which contributes to resolving disputes more quickly and improving the overall business environment. He noted that the regulations stipulating that the Committee has to issue a reasoned decision, within 30 days of receiving all the required data and documents, fall within the framework of the Authority’s keenness to establish work mechanisms that ensure speed and effective resolution of disputes.
Secretariat
The new decision stipulates the formation of a technical secretariat for the Committee. The secretariat’s role is to prepare documents relating to the insurance dispute to present to the Committee, in addition to other procedural tasks such as registering and studying dispute resolution applications and preparing a report with an opinion on the subject, in addition to preparing an electronic table for registering and storing applications for the settlement of disputes, which includes a statement of the date of the application, the subject of the dispute, the data of its parties, the dates of the meetings that were held to consider it, and the decisions issued by the committee regarding it.
The Secretariat also prepares a draft agenda for the committee sessions and presents it to the committee chairman for approval, prepares meeting minutes including the opinions expressed during the session, the decisions issued and the brief reasons on which these decisions were based, and keeps the minutes of the committee meetings and the decisions issued by it, and ensures that the concerned parties have been notified of the Committee’s decisions.
The parties to the dispute are obligated to implement the Committee’s decision within 30 days from the date it becomes enforceable. This period may be extended after the approval, where justified.
To ensure impartiality and integrity, the FRA resolution sets out strict controls to prevent conflicts of interest, prohibiting Committee members from considering, participating in, or voting on any topic or resolution if they or their relatives up to the fourth degree have a direct or indirect interest in the dispute, or are adversaries of any of the parties.
At the end of October 2025, the FRA issued a decision, which obliges insurance companies to establish an integrated system for resolving customer complaints quickly and transparently, through the creation of specialised internal departments to deal with complaints, and the application of the highest standards of disclosure and clarity in all insurance documents and services provided to customers.
Insurance companies and related professions are also required to submit periodic reports to the Authority that include the reasons for complaints and the corrective actions taken regarding them.
The dispute settlement process in the insurance sector thus has several stages: The customer files a complaint to the insurer, which is obligated to respond to it as quickly as possible. If the customer does not accept the company’s response, he has the right to resort to the FRA without paying any fees. Then, the customer has the right to resort to the Committee for the Protection of Customers and Settlement of Insurance Disputes, subject to the payment of specific fees.