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There will always be a need for takaful, however, takaful operators must work together to aggressively promote the product to the public, said Hong Leong MSIG Takaful Bhd. Chief Executive Officer Wan Mohd Fadzullah Wan Abdullah said it was imperative to educate the public that takaful was an all-weather financial planning tool. While the growth of takaful has been at a faster rate compared to conventional insurance, Wan Mohd Fadzullah said the volume was still low. Sri Lanka-based Amana Takaful Life Chief Executive Officer, Reyaz Jeffrey said one effective way of promoting takaful awareness, was through agency channels.

Islamic International Rating Agency (IIRA) has reaffirmed the Takaful Financial Strength (TFS) rating of The Islamic Insurance Company (TIIC) in Jordan at 'A' (Single A). Outlook on the assigned rating is 'Stable'. The fiduciary score has been reassessed in the range of '71-75', which indicates that protection factors are adequate. The assigned rating derives strength from TIIC 's franchise as a Shari'a compliant operator that builds on the reputation of its parent, Jordan Islamic Bank, and which forms part of the Al Baraka Banking Group. Established in 1996, the company has grown at a steady rate and presently commands a market share of about 4% in Jordan's overall insurance sector.

The board of directors of IGI Life Insurance has approved the commencement of family Takaful business in Pakistan. Total gross premiums of IGI Life amounted to over Rs1.8 billion at the end of the first nine months of 2014. In April last year, IGI Insurance acquired a 69.7% stake in American Life Insurance Company Pakistan (Alico) for Rs732 million. The establishment of the window family Takaful operation is accompanied with the allocation of Rs50 million for this purpose. In addition, Jubilee Life, EFU Life and Adamjee Life have also expressed their intention to establish Islamic window operations recently.

Nigeria’s insurance industry showed significant signs of positive gains in 2014. The sector’s contribution to the GDP was still at 0.4 percent even though it could achieve no less than 10 percent annually if well developed. The low level has been largely due to low awareness, poor purchasing power of Nigerians, poor market drive and unexciting products from insurers as well as lack of government patronage of insurance. At the National Insurance Summit held in Abuja, in December 2014 the government announced that it has set a target of N1 trillion in the next three years, and N5 trillion gross written premiums for the insurance sector within the next 10 years.

According to a report from the Oxford Business Group Brunei's financial system is in transition to one in which Islamic banking and takaful are the dominant forms of banking and insurance. The publication of the Report says that in 2014, Brunei two Islamic banks, Perbadanan Tabung Amanah Islam Brunei and Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam had a total combined assets of $7.9 billion at the end of 2013. Takaful is also dominant in the general insurance sector with a 68 per cent share of the general insurance and takaful assets. Insurance Islam TAIB and Takaful Brunei compete in Brunei’s insurance market.

In Mogadishu the country’s first Islamic insurance company was launched after decades of instability and civil war. The opening Ceremony of the Takaful and Re-Takful Islamic Insurance Company was had representative guests from major Somali financial institutes as well as business people and federal government officials. In Somalia the insurance banking system sector collapsed in 1991.

Tokio Marine Family Takaful’s newly appointed Managing Director Masaya Inagaki comes to Egypt with great expectations for the Egyptian insurance market. Inagaki said that providing a service with high quality at a reasonable price for customers is a core concept in Japanese culture, and that he is determined to apply that in Egypt. His goal is to make Tokio Marine Family Takaful the number one Takaful company in the country, he added. The company also intends to cooperate with banks in light of the new regulations issued lately by the Central Bank to activate banking insurance.

In line with its commitment to foster the cargo insurance facilities, Dubai Trade has signed an agreement with Dar Al Takaful to provide the marine and cargo insurance services through Dubai Trade's online platform "Tradeshield" which has been launched earlier this year. The agreement was signed by the CEO of Dubai Trade, Eng. Mahmood Al Bastaki, and Mr. Saleh Al Hashmi, the Managing Director of Dar Al Takaful . Dubai Trade allows clients to easily complete the end-to-end process of purchasing cargo insurance online through its website.

The global population of 2 billion Muslims remains largely unprotected against risk. There is a growing need to design insurance products that meet the needs of these excluded adults to provide better risk protection. Takaful is one possible solution for people who would not otherwise use conventional insurance products. The greatest potential for Takaful may be in countries with predominantly Muslim populations. However, these countries also tend to be ones with some of the lowest levels of financial literacy. This situation creates a significant challenge for supervisors. With the help of an enabling regulatory environment, Takaful can deliver on the promise of necessary products at the right price.

Takaful is set to grow in Turkey, with its predominantly Muslim population showing increasing interest in Islamic finance products and the government keen to support their growth. However, insurance of any kind can be a hard sell in Turkey, with the population generally averse to insurance cover and penetration levels as low as 1.4%. Consultancy firm Ernst & Young (E&Y) has identified Turkey as a new market for sharia-compliant insurance. E&Y suggests a number of hurdles have to be removed before such products could take off, with supply-side constraints and a limited legal infrastructure for Islamic finance currently hindering growth.

Takaful Ikhlas Bhd is confident the gross contributions for its financial year ending March 31, 2015 (FY15) will hit RM800 million, up from RM772 million in FY14, driven by its newly launched and final quarter awareness programmes. President and Chief Executive Officer, Ab Latiff Abu Bakar said the full-year target was achievable as the company had already secured RM400 million in gross contributions in the first six months of FY15. Ab Latiff said more promotional campaigns would be executed in the fourth quarter of FY15, that is from January-March next year, and expected non-Muslims to account for one-quarter of customers by end-March 2015.

Despite the global takaful insurance market exhibiting impressive double digit growth of 18 percent over the period 2007-2012, the regulatory environment remains a work in progress and faces the challenge of inconsistency and conflicting interpretation across jurisdictions. These are the findings of Deloitte’s 2014 Takaful Insurance Report for Asia, Middle East and Africa, entitled ““The Way Forward for Takaful". Examining six key markets, the report identifies practice gaps and product offerings. Among the findings the study observes that takaful product offerings and diversity of products are lacking, and that the Takaful business is by far underpenetrated in the six countries examined.

Takaful is set to grow in Turkey, with its predominantly Muslim population showing increasing interest in Islamic finance products and the government keen to support their growth. However, insurance of any kind can be a hard sell in Turkey, with the population generally averse to insurance cover and penetration levels as low as 1.4%. Takaful also has a minimal profile in the Turkish market at present. The two firms that offer Islamic insurance products, Neova Sigorta and Asya Emeklilik, account for less than 0.5% of the insurance sector’s assets. However, the increasing success of Islamic banks could point to a market opening for takaful underwriters.

While the Gulf Arab states increased market penetration with Takaful, Malaysia continues to lead the global Takaful industry, said the 2nd Takaful report by consultancy Deloitte released here on Sunday. However, Takaful operators face the problem of over-regulation and resource scarcity. The lack of resources such as qualified staff, missing research capabilities and low demand for life insurance products, in the Middle East in particular, have slowed down the growth of Takaful. Oversupply is another obstacle. In Kuwait alone, there are 30 Takaful operators which means many can't generate sufficient profits simply because the market is too small.

Dubai Trade, the cross-border trade facilitator, has signed an agreement with Noor Takaful that will give Dubai Trade customers access to an Islamic insurer for the first time, and an even wider choice of marine and cargo insurance providers online through its Tradeshield platform. Tradeshield allows customers to complete the end-to-end process of purchasing cargo insurance online through the dedicated website www.tradeshield.ae. Noor Takaful will go live on the site for customers in the New Year.

Lahore-based Asia Insurance Company Ltd will seek shareholder approval next week to offer takaful products.The company will seek approval to allocate 50 million rupees ($492,853) in capital to its takaful operation, the minimum capitalisation requirement. It will also seek to increase its authorised capital to 500 million rupees from 300 million currently. Asia Insurance joins a growing list of firms in offering sharia-compliant products including United Insurance Company and EFU insurance group. In May, Pakistani regulators introduced new takaful rules that allowed conventional firms to enter the sector. Regulators expect as many as half of all conventional insurers in Pakistan to eventually offer takaful products.

The total value of investment revenues of Arab Orient Takaful Insurance within the first quarter of the fiscal year 2014/2015 inched by 38% to EGP5.8 million in compared to EGP4.2 million within the same period of the previous year. Mohamed Akef, deputy executive director of financial and administrative affairs of the company explained that the allocated investment revenues reached EGP3.971 million at the end of September while the unallocated investment revenues were EGP1.821 million in the same period. The total value of premiums which attained by Arab Orient Takaful in the first quarter of the fiscal year of 2014/2015 reached EGP63.8 million in compared to EGP52 million in the same period of the previous year, he asserted.

In order to develop a robust takaful sector, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has allowed M/s SPI Insurance Company Limited, formerly known as Saudi Pak Insurance Company Limited, to start window takaful operations. The initiative would help meet the risk mitigation needs of the masses and develop the Islamic financial sector, according to the SECP. Previously, two conventional insurance companies were allowed to transact takaful business through window operations. Currently, the SECP is processing one more application to start window takaful operations. The takaful sector in Pakistan has yet to go a long way in fulfilling the risk mitigation needs of the masses.

Five days long advanced training courses regarding Islamic insurance has started in the Russian Islamic Institute. Islamic Business and Finance Development Fund (IBFD Fund), Kazan (Privolzhsky) federal university, Russian Islamic University and LLC IC “Alliance Life” are organizers of the course. Important issues of nowadays are implementation of Islamic economic products at banking, insurance and other spheres, development of education in the scope of Islamic economy. Lecturers of the courses are worldwide recognized specialist at Islamic economy. Islamic insurance courses will continue up to November 21. Round-table of Islamic insurance implementation is going to be held on November 22.

A source at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) said a number of insurance companies that have incurred huge losses may be forced to halt operations to protect their clients. The source added that many of these companies’ financial situations are continually deteriorating, they have not committed to presenting a strategic plan to correct their situation and, at the same time, they have refused to merge with other companies. Insurance experts said there are six companies that have incurred losses of 55 to 75 percent: Salamah, Wafa, Arabian, International, Amanah and Inmaa. SAMA has seized the operations of Sanad and Wiqayah insurance companies due to their huge losses.