10th Middle East Insurance Industry Awards 2023

With a vision to be the market-leading domestic life insurer and employee benefits provider of choice in the Middle East, Zurich’s achievements in the past year brought it one step closer to realising that ambition.

Having paid 98% of its life claims over the last three years, Zurich demonstrated that claim settlement represents the ultimate decisive moment in the relationship with customers.

Zurich zeroed in on customers’ mindset to remain abreast of their needs and aspirations as well as help them take ownership of their financial knowledge and make decisions impacting their future. The theme of the campaign this year was: A life worth insuring.

Zurich Online platform has continued to evolve to enable customers to manage their insurance needs where it covers about 80% of the most frequently requested services, leading to improved customer service and partner satisfaction.

Zurich demonstrated its commitment to becoming one of the most responsible and impactful businesses in the world this year through a partnership with a social movement dedicated to improving the customer experience for people of determination (POD) and their families. Through this partnership, Zurich is committed to providing dedicated assistance for POD customers. In addition, the company established Zurich Purple advocacy group for customers who have acquired their disability in the past five years to support them with the guidance and expertise of the Purple team.

The company has launched new values – customer focus, agility, respect and entrepreneurial mindset, forming the acronym CARE which demonstrate its care about customers, partners, employees and the planet.

With 36 years of experience in the Middle East, 244,000 customers protected and over 400 employees across 35 nationalities, Zurich is building its vision and business strategy on strong foundations.

Bahrain National Insurance (bni), Bahrain’s leading insurance company, has over 50 years of experience in motor, personal and commercial insurance. It has consistently demonstrated its commitment to excellence by providing its personal and commercial customers with the best products and services.

Through unrelenting innovation and dedication to quality, it has established itself as a market leader, setting a benchmark for others to follow. With its legacy of success, bni’s leading position in the industry makes it a standout nominee for this prestigious award and prides itself on creating several new and innovative products.

It embraces ESG principles in every aspect of its operations. It passionately believes that it is its duty to step up and support purpose-driven businesses that actively work to improve their ESG footprint.

With this dedication to ESG, it has firmly established itself as an insurance provider committed to have a positive influence on the world, by working to offer meaningful outcomes to all stakeholders.

It remains resolute in its pursuit of sustainable solutions by aligning its operations and partnerships with ESG considerations. It actively contributes to building a better and more resilient future for its community and the world at large.

Its unwavering commitment to innovation, customer-centricity and sustainability sets it apart as a leading insurance provider. From pioneering products to comprehensive initiatives addressing COVID-19 and ESG integration, bni continues to exemplify excellence and deliver meaningful outcomes for its stakeholders.

Since Cigna Healthcare’s arrival in the Middle East 17 years ago, its portfolio has expanded, network has grown, products and services evolved significantly resulting in Cigna becoming a leading insurer in the region.

Its strategic and focused regional expansion emphasises its commitment to the Middle East and Africa. Earlier this year, it became the first international health insurer to receive a branch license in Saudi Arabia.

This branch license – granted by the Saudi Arabian Central Bank - allows it to offer best-in-class, quality, affordable health insurance services. As it has been serving Saudi Arabia through a joint venture for 17 years, it is building upon that experience to provide relevant, localised solutions for clients, brokers and employees as they make Vision 2030 a reality.

Saudi Arabia was not the only market in which it was making a more significant impact. In 2022-23, it implemented a new framework in Africa, which streamlines its operations and leverages its global expertise and local capabilities to serve customers better.

In 2022, it received a participating insurer license issued from the Dubai Health Insurance Corporation. Through this license, it offers affordable and accessible health insurance solutions to a wider group of lower-salary-band employees across varied industries in the UAE through Cigna’s essential benefits plan and enhanced essential benefits plan.

It also launched Thiqa top-up plans to provide full medical coverage to UAE nationals in the Abu Dhabi that are enrolled under the Thiqa programme.

Nextcare assists insurers, businesses, and individuals in navigating healthcare systems and improving their lives through customised healthcare plans and digital health solutions. With 87% of renewed policies across the region, the company continues to build innovative solutions focused on e-health solutions through its new one health global Lumi ecosystem platform, enabling members to access their healthcare needs through a 360-degree approval.

The company’s ecosystem includes various platforms for provider management, insurer platforms and member platforms. It currently has over 4m insured members, 120+ partners, $2bn+ in premium and $1.5bn+ claims under management. It is at the forefront of technological innovation, revolutionising healthcare through the introduction of numerous digitally enabled solutions and has successfully launched its telehealth services via the new Lumi app globally.

Nextcare’s telehealth efforts in the UAE have resulted in an increase in the percentage of repeat callers, rising from 42% in 2022 to 66% in 2023.The company has successfully expanded its services globally, making them accessible in both the US and Europe.

The company’s multi-disciplinary team of experts, doctors, coders and data scientists have developed a proprietary and scalable model to optimise claims control. It consists of live claim investigations model and a data model for fraud trend analysis; coupled with preventive rules and techniques like medical files audit, mystery shopping and whistle blowers.

It has heavily promoted diversity, professional equity and opportunity, social integration and fights against inequalities and has also embraced an environment where employees can bring their authenticity to life, promoting competence and commitment.

Under its social impact programme for 2023, the company provides funds to the Red Cross in Lebanon for its ‘race to securing lifesaving blood products’.

Abu Dhabi National Takaful (ADNT) is the first composite takaful provider to be assigned ‘A-’ rating by AM Best for seven consecutive years.

ADNT has consistently demonstrated outstanding performance, unwavering financial stability, a culture of innovation, a customercentric approach and a steadfast commitment to the principles of takaful.

It achieved revenue growth of 21% in 2022. It continued demonstrating growth (71%) in revenue reaching AED206m ($56m) in the first quarter of 2023 compared to AED120m in the first quarter of 2022.

The company has achieved growth in profitability in all years of operation since establishment in 2004 up to the first quarter of 2023. It has been ranked the first among all takaful companies from 2015-2022 by generating accumulated net profit of AED475m.

The company has embarked on adoption of state-of-the-art digitalisation and automation with the objective to enhance customer experience, operational efficiency and market reach.

While carrying on with digital transformation programme, the company has also launched digital products and services offering transparency, diversity, and service excellence across all segments and these have found acceptance and acclaim with the targeted consumers.

To achieve geographical spread and diversification, ADNT has successfully launched global market accessibility in 2022 by leveraging its balance sheet strength and financial strength rating ‘A-’ for accepting facultative inward business.

In addition to its prudent approach in arranging reinsurance protection and using other risk management tools, the company is aware of the risks associated with the digital revolution and for that reason extra measures are taken to protect its database and digital distribution channels.

Arma Underwriting is a specialist multi-line managing general agency (MGA), licensed and approved by the Dubai Financial Services Authority since 2017, with an underwriting hub in the Dubai International Financial Centre and offices in London with ASTA Underwriting Management providing back-office support and infrastructure in a similar way to that provided to Lloyd’s syndicates.

Arma has written premiums since its inception almost AED600m ($163m) with 2023 expected to finish at around AED170m with an overall gross earned loss ratio of 33.3%.

Arma underwrites commercial lines and consumer lines in the MENA region and global energy in selected territories with multiple lines of business serving its client needs across their general insurance portfolios.

Arma serves over 110 regional brokers and 60 local cedants across the business with risks in 88 countries and over 3,000 polices. This spread adds predictably and robustness to the business with a spread of non-correlating lines of business, geographical spread and distribution reach.

Collectively, it has the most experienced underwriting and management team in the region with all high-profile market leading and respected individuals from senior roles in the region with some of the top insurers.

Portfolio data feeds into pricing tools supporting each underwriting decision with machine learning built into the process, guiding the underwriters on such things as rate adequacy, line size deployment and attachment points all based on similar risks in the data sets.

It has developed a real-time analytics dashboard to give insights into all aspects of the business from every aspect of the portfolios including, pricing adequacy, capacity utilisation, geographies, underwriting performance and cash, all with the ability to drill down simply to a distribution/cedant level and binder level.

Bahrain Institute for Banking and Finance (BIBF) has been a trusted partner of the regional insurance industry for over four decades, dedicated to developing insurance professionals across the MENA region. BIBF offers comprehensive professional development programmes customised for various segments and focused on developing technical competencies in insurance.

In recent years, BIBF has been committed to providing specialised programmes and initiatives that support the entire insurance ecosystem and addressing the specific needs of the insurance industry in MENA.

With the GCC states privatising medical insurance, BIBF developed a full-fledged medical insurance qualification, designed and focused on covering practical medical insurance knowledge for medical insurance underwriters, claims staff, sales agents and business development personnel.

The Capital Market Authority of Oman adopted the qualification as the main training material to support the launch of their compulsory medical insurance policy.

Last year, BIBF launched the Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters (CILA) initiative in collaboration with the Saudi regulator focusing on a specialised segment of loss adjustors and in-house property claims handlers. Participants from Saudi had the opportunity to attain both the certificate (Cert CILA) and the Diploma (Dip CILA).

In partnership with Mena Re Life, BIBF designed and delivered an applied and practical biometric underwriting workshop enriched with case studies using the actual pricing manual of Mena Re.

BIBF has also introduced the executive education programme, designed specifically for executives and senior-level managers in the region in partnership with Bayes Business School, covering selected topics on the agenda of insurance executives in MENA.

Judges training programme is another strategic programme, executed in partnership with the Central Bank of Bahrain and Bahrain’s Ministry of Justice and Islamic Affairs, offering training courses that cater to the needs of commercial court judges, focusing on commercial, technical and real estate topics.

One of the region’s most recognised insurers, Sukoon Insurance has been building its digital transformation framework over the past five years, culminating in a modern, agile insurer that meets the pace of demand of today’s customers.

The company maintained a clear focus on five strategic pillars that steered it towards business excellence.

Sukoon built an industry-leading, resilient cloud estate. The insurers focused on this between 2018-19 and transformed the legacy IT estate to an industry-leading, resilient and highly-secure, future-ready cloud estate.

All investments into digitisation from 2019 to date have enabled it to transform Sukoon from a traditional insurer to a digital one and implement many innovative, one-of-a-kind digital initiatives.

The insurer also sees the value in ensuring that their employees also step into the digital age. With its e-learning initiatives, not only does Sukoon provide its employees with the resources they need to improve their skills and knowledge sets, but also groom themselves to serve the company’s clients in the most efficient and effective way possible.

Along with covering the basics, Sukoon managed to materialise significant innovative digital success stories, reaffirming the company’s vision to be a reference in the regions. These include being first in market to adopt Azure Cloud and Cloud Oracle in 2019 and 2022, respectively and delivering several large scale digital programmes via these platforms.

Anoud is a best-in-class insurance IT suite, with a full range of policy administration capabilities and sophisticated tools to help insurers manage underwriting strategies and monitor exposures to natural catastrophes. By deploying Anoud, insurers can effectively and comprehensively manage every aspect of their personal lines, property and casualty, medical and life insurance operations.

Anoud is the only insurance IT platform that has been endorsed by Swiss Re based on its extensive reviews of IT systems at over 200 leading insurance companies across the world.

While Anoud is a last-mile product, based on carriers’ requirements, it can be integrated with third-party IT solutions and portals to provide customers an omni channel experience. Third-party integration with Anoud is made possible by its open architecture and leading technologies that were used in its design and development.

Anoud comprises core insurance modules for personal insurance (an intelligent web-based solution with cutting-edge tools and best practice workflows to digitally transform personal lines insurance operations), corporate insurance (covering a broad range of commercial lines of business, including, property and casualty, marine, aviation, energy, engineering, liability and other miscellaneous classes), medical insurance (a comprehensive policy administration solution with all the features to run a modern and highly efficient health insurance operation and which covers both group medical and individual/family medical insurance) and life insurance (a web-based solution which manages group life, credit life and individual life insurance).

Other integrated modules cover finance and controls, customer relationship management, analytics, and human resources and administrative operations.

Badri Management Consultancy, with over 150 employees, is a major player in the MENA region and is the appointed actuary for 25 companies in the GCC. In order to provide a seamless and cost-effective solution in generating IFRS17 financials and disclosures, the company unveiled its calculation tool that is helping companies save time and effort in their IFRS17 reporting processes.

It has become the first actuarial firm in the region to release an IFRS17-compliant UAE industry report. It has also launched the data governance segment specifically targeting the banking sector in the MENA region. Through its group company it has been providing actuarial and other segment training to some of its prospective clients.

Badri’s digitalisation strategy encompasses a deep dive down into distribution channels and potential for automation, growth plans and market expansion strategies. Its prebuilt, ready-to-deploy dashboard solutions is designed specifically for the needs of the insurance and financial industry.

The company’s scholarship programme recognises and rewards outstanding actuarial students and every year 20 students are given scholarships, that is divided between 10 each for SOA and IFOA exams.

Badri’s conferences for actuaries and insurance professionals serve as a platform for collaboration, knowledge sharing, and problem-solving. It also publishes research reports that are widely recognised in the industry and provide critical insights towards optimal decision making. The company also publishes a periodic newsletter related to end of service benefits which provides insights into retirement and EOS benefits. It provides content to various research publications and insightful content on most considered topics relating to the MENA insurance industry.

A dedicated and accomplished risk management professional, Mr Ahmed Khalfan Al Mansoori has made significant contributions to Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) in driving and achieving the group’s risk management objectives.

Associated with ADNOC for over two decades, he has demonstrated exceptional leadership skills. He has also received international exposure in developed markets to hone his skills across several areas.

Mr Al Mansoori works to embed risk management principles into the fabric of ADNOC operations and decision-making processes. As a corporate risk manager, he has worked closely with the senior management team to assess risks, develop risk management plans and provide regular updates to senior management.

A professional board member to multiple companies, he chairs the executive committee and audit committees, as well as chairs several finance committees for the group companies.

He initiated the setting up of the corporate insurance division of ADNOC, which is today a centre of excellence for insurance in the company. The team manages in excess of $200m of premium into the local and international insurance market.

He was also instrumental in recognising a perceived increase of earthquake risk in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and wider region and following this the company undertook a first in region earthquake deep dive into the inherent risk in the UAE and the degree of resilience within ADNOC.

Mr Al Mansoori laid the foundation for treasury excellence programme to develop young talent within by putting in place a comprehensive training framework covering all treasury activities. The company expects to graduate 30-40 of the brightest employees over the coming years to fast-track the development of ADNOC’s future leaders.

Norton Rose Fulbright’s Middle East insurance team is part of a global insurance team that has developed a reputation as one of the largest and best-resourced insurance and reinsurance practices. Its Dubai-based full-service practice advises on both contentious and non-contentious matters. In addition to the team’s deep sector knowledge and innovation being highly valued and sought after by clients it is also continuously recognised by industry peers and associations.

The practice is blazing a trail in the region’s insurance sector. It has identified gaps in how the insurance market is serviced by firms throughout the Middle East and cemented a place as the region’s leading adviser on highly complex forms of insurance work. Examples of this include its award-winning cyber response and disputes practice and the development of warranties and indemnities (W&I) insurance underwriting in the region.

In addition, the team prides itself on its ability to support clients and insurers across a broad range of insurance and reinsurance matters including: Directors' and officers' liabilities, financial lines, medical malpractice, claims, professional negligence liability, defence cyber security, corporate M&A and W&I mandates.

The strength and calibre of its work is testament to its leading position in the market. Leveraging the market knowledge and expertise of its leading insurance practice across the globe, locally it focuses on high risk, innovative and complex matters.

For a practice that has only existed for a relatively short time, it has made exceptional gains and is now considered one of the pre-eminent insurance law firms in the Middle East. Significantly, it is also a practice highly compliant with all aspects of Norton Rose Fulbright’s diversity and inclusion principles with team members from diverse gender, ethnicity, religious, and social backgrounds.

Howden Insurance Brokers, Middle East and Africa (Howden) looks to be an innovator and disruptor, making an impact for its people, clients and society. Being a private company with 35% of its shares owned by employees, allows Howden to think and act for the long term, creating a culture of entrepreneurship that makes it a place where people have the drive to deliver for clients, take responsibility for results and stay passionate about what they do.

Howden’s employee-ownership model promotes a unique mix of expertise, innovation and entrepreneurship in pursuit of the best solutions for clients. The company invests in diversity and inclusion (about 50% of leadership in UAE are women); career planning and mentoring, graduate programmes and Emiratisation.

In the past year, Howden continued to attract the best talent and empower staff to develop innovative solutions for clients. An example is crafting a solution for United National Development Program to allow a salvage operation to avert what would have been the world’s largest oil spill and man-made environmental disaster in Yemen.

To serve clients by multi-disciplinary experts, Howden built a unique positioning within MEA that puts clients at the centre of everything, joining the dots to give advice that is greater than the sum of its parts. This philosophy has enabled it to become a true alternative to the largest global brokers and a partner for largescale corporations.

Howden in MEA relies on investment in building specialty team on ground while adopting segmentation to assist client specific needs. Its renewal retention stands at 90%.

In the past year, Howden expanded to new territories: Bahrain, Sharjah, South Africa and Morocco.

Chedid Re’s legacy among the MENA insurance and reinsurance field’s market leaders has been more than two decades in the making. While it continues to capitalise on the market clout, robust infrastructure and geographic footprint of its parent group, Chedid Re has carved out its own market position in the Middle East over the past two-plus decades.

Its rapid growth has been powered by longstanding relationships with reinsurers across markets and an increasingly diversified portfolio covering large conglomerates in economic sectors including engineering, marine, aviation and energy. Represented by eight hub offices spanning Europe, Middle East, Africa and South Asia, Chedid Re services 400 cedants in 70 countries across the globe.

Its objectives remains to constantly improve customer centricity with close follow up, consistent approach, quick response, alternative solutions along with offering trainings, webinars & internships.

Its borderless growth philosophy has attracted an equally ambitious and increasingly diverse talent base, today counting 281 people from 20 countries, and representing 20 nationalities; a power pool of experienced specialists, entrepreneurial doers, and strategic problem solvers with the skills and spirit to shape the future of insurance and reinsurance.

Chedid Re’s steadfast commitment to evolving its product, people, and partners – and the many connections that bind and power all three – has driven its success and business growth philosophy. In an uncertain and fast-paced economic and business environment, it has anchored its pursuit of service excellence and product innovation in core values of trust, integrity, transparency and tenacity.

RGA Middle East measures its achievements across seven performance outcomes that have driven success throughout the past year.

Client centricity. This is a core tenet of RGA’s business philosophy. In the MENA region, RGA is recognised as a leading reinsurer not only for our superior capacity, rating security, and local accessibility, but also for the innovative solutions we deliver to our clients.

Creative solutions. With more than 30 employees and cumulative work experience of more than 300 years, RGA ME has the necessary expertise to understand client challenges and develop creative solutions in response, advancing shared goals to serve the financial protection needs of the region.

Cultivating client resources. RGA succeeds when its clients succeed and knowledge sharing is essential. RGA’s 650+ actuaries and dedicated team of data scientists across the globe are committed to sharing their technical expertise with clients. It believes that the better informed a client is, the more growth and profitability their mutual strategies will drive.

Commitment to the region. Its solutions, technical support and innovative products are valued by our clients. Its skilled and experienced workforce has now grown to 31 full-time employees and includes qualified actuaries, as well as experience analysis and mortality study experts.

Claims and underwriting management expertise. It ranked number one in claims and underwriting management on NMG Consulting’s 2022 survey of 45 ceding companies asked to rate 12 reinsurers operating the region.

Community support. As part of the ongoing helping widows and orphans in distress project, all 31 RGA ME employees have committed to monthly donations. Since its inception, more than 50 programme participants have benefitted from RGA ME’s generosity.

Saudi Reinsurance Company has been expanding and diversifying into international markets, which accounted for 44% of its portfolio in 2022.

The company recorded a 26% growth in GWP, while maintaining strong foothold in more than 40 markets across the Middle East, Asia, Africa and the UK and has sustained strong growth momentum, achieving a five-year CAGR of 18% from 2018 to 2022. Its technical performance has also improved with 79% growth in underwriting results, while achieving a historical record combined ratio of 96.4%, reflecting a prudent and effective underwriting policy.

The company's total equity increased from SR963m ($257m) to SR1bn, while total assets saw a 32% increase, reaching SR4.2bn. These results showcase the strength of Saudi Re's balance sheet and its efficient risk management, as evidenced by its healthy solvency position and the SR1.4bn in technical reserves in 2022.

The reinsurer obtained “A-” long-term issuer credit and insurer financial strength rating, and “gcAAA” regional scale rating with a stable outlook from S&P Global Ratings. Concurrently, Moody’s Investors Service, has affirmed “A3” Insurance Financial Strength Rating (IFSR), and “A1.sa” national scale IFSR, with a stable outlook.

The company has made steady progress in its adoption of IFRS17, and deployed advanced solutions that enable full and seamless transition with the aim of providing stakeholders with the highest level of data transparency and consistency.

Saudi Re through its future leaders’ programme initiative hopes to accelerate the development of Saudi graduates and equip them with the necessary skills to become future leaders in the (re)insurance industry. As the sole specialised reinsurer in a rapidly developing market, Saudi Re plays a crucial role in raising professional standards, expanding product offerings, and also addressing insurance coverage gaps.

Ms Gaenor Jones is the regional director of the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) and is based in Dubai. Her commitment to forging strong relationships with public and private sectors across the Middle East region in order to boost professional standards in the insurance sector is exemplary.

Over the past five years, since taking up the role, she has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the importance of continuous professional development and the attainment of internationally recognised qualifications in order to boost professional standards across the Middle East region.

In her mission, she works with all of the main regulators, and with their respective training arms, providing career pathways for professionals and lending support for nationalisation programmes.

She has also worked tirelessly to cement partnerships with the region’s leading corporates in order to encourage qualification/ membership uptake. She played an instrumental role in furthering the CII’s international professional partner firm initiative.

Ms Jones spearheads a wealth of awareness-raising initiatives through participation in a range of events, roundtables and platforms across the region, in collaboration with major stakeholders. She is able to operate at both a granular and strategic level, and this combination makes her very approachable to a very wide range of decision makers, stakeholders and government entities.

She is a leader in every sense, and her progressive contribution to the Middle East’s developing insurance sector cannot be underestimated. As the industry matures and regulations become more robust, she is the ideal candidate to champion the importance of internationally recognised qualifications for the sector’s professionals now and well into the future.

HAYAH Insurance CEO Mohamed Seghir’s work exemplifies the results that can be achieved when innovation, technology and customer-centricity converge. His passion for financial inclusion, AI-driven service delivery and industry disruption are shaping the future of wealth management in the MENA region.

He is an actuary with over 14 years of experience in the industry. His career began in 2007 at FWU in Munich, where he worked as an actuary responsible for Western Europe and the Middle East. He later went on to work at Munich Re as a manager of actuarial services before joining Swiss Re in Zurich in 2013. At Swiss Re, he held various leadership roles, including senior marketing actuary for life and health business in MENA, Turkey and Pakistan and head of North Africa (P&C and L&H) and Middle East (L&H).

Mr Seghir embodies a new generation of leaders as HAYAH has embarked on a full digital transformation, emerging as a truly digital entity, where products can be purchased online with seamless ease.

HAYAH has fully embraced digitalisation and has championed the introduction of digital life insurance, savings, pensions and medical insurance offerings, signifying a shift in the delivery of insurance services in the UAE.

He took the helm of HAYAH just before the transition from AXA Green Crescent to its current independent status in 2022. He steered the company through this transformation, managing the rebranding process to maintain customer trust and loyalty.

HAYAH has evolved into a vibrant, youthful, and accessible insurance brand that resonates with the digital-first generation.

Misr Life Insurance (MLI) executive managing director Dr Ahmed Abd El-Aziz’s track record spans both the private and public sectors in local and international markets. Dr El-Aziz is considered one of the most successful and dedicated leaders. He has a strong track record of success and achievements.

With over 25 years of experience in the insurance industry and a strong operational background, he has successfully transformed one of the most challenging companies in Egypt, Africa, and the Middle East. With a passion for optimising processes and handson experience gained through six sigma projects, he has utilised his knowledge and expertise to lead a market giant with a long history of bureaucracy and outdated policies.

The company was formed through the merger of three public sector companies and has been in operation for over 120 years. He has successfully positioned it as a market leader.

Under his leadership, MLI has achieved a leap in productivity, operational capabilities, customer service and distribution. He has sponsored and led one of the largest transformation and change management programmes for a public sector company. This initiative resulted in a complete successfully integrated IT platform making MLI a prominent player in the Egyptian market.

MLI was able to almost triple its productivity in the past six years.

His operational achievements include unified policy handling and management among the three merged companies, unified operational processes and claims management, unified underwriting procedures and document handling, lead the unification of the financial systems, updated all IT platforms and unified policy handling and management among the three merged companies.