GCC and Middle East

Universal Health Consultants

‘Towards a Robust, Sustainable GCC Insurance Market’ and ‘Middle East Insurance Review: Innovation Opportunities’, are based upon our research and discussions with insurers, regulators and TPA organisations in the GCC and Middle East Region.

Synopsis

These papers give a brief overview of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) and Middle East insurance markets and the strategic challenges and opportunities for insurers. Some of these challenges and opportunities are economic, whereas others are cultural, social or political.

An important feature of the GCC and Middle East insurance markets to date has been the relatively low take-up of insurance products. This has been partly as a result of the religious and cultural difficulties inherent in profit-based insurance principles. We believe that many of these issues can be constructively addressed by the introduction of mutual and co-operative insurance principles (including secular and Islamic models) which support transparent, simple insurance products and ethical customer relationships.

The GCC and Middle East region is in the process of a demographic transition involving a journey from a surge in younger working age population, towards reducing fertility and population ageing. These demographics combined with greater levels of morbidity amongst the population due to higher incidence of chronic diseases will demand changes in how and what care is delivered and how it is funded.

The emerging mandatory healthcare developments throughout the GCC and Middle East present a major opportunity for disruption innovation to take hold and transform the healthcare insurance market structure from a traditional ‘wealthy expatriate’ business model to one with the potential for long-term sustainability, robustness and resilience.

IAA Health Section Colloquium

13th – 16th May 2007

CTICC

www.iaahs2007.com

To contact us for more information:

E-mail: uhcg@cwgsy.net