GCC Insurance Daily
The day's insurance news across the GCC: regulation, governance, AI in insurance, and people moves. Curated, attributed, and linked to the source.
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AM Best has affirmed Kuwait Insurance Company's financial strength rating at A- (Excellent), stable, citing a strong balance sheet and a 2023-2025 average combined ratio of 87.2% on a 12% return on equity. Solid underwriting discipline at one of Kuwait's older carriers, set against the agency's standing caveat about the limited scale of smaller Gulf insurers.
Qatar Insurance has linked its QIC App to Qatar Airways, letting customers convert QIC Coins into Avios for the airline's Privilege Club and put points towards travel insurance premiums. A retention play that piggybacks on the flag carrier's frequent-flyer base rather than building a rewards ecosystem from scratch.
The Strait of Hormuz has begun reopening after a US-Iran memorandum took effect mid-week, with the first Gulf tankers transiting again. Insurance is trailing the diplomacy: war-risk premiums are still running at roughly 2.5% to 3% of hull value, some 25 to 30 times the pre-conflict norm, and P&I cover pulled during the closure has yet to be fully reinstated.
Lloyd's has stood up a marine war-risk consortium led by Chubb to add capacity behind reopening Hormuz traffic, offering up to $200m each for hull and P&I plus a further $200m for cargo, available to brokers from 19 June. It is the market's supply-side answer to a Gulf corridor that underwriters de-risked heavily during the blockade.
Each item is a short editorial summary with a link to the original source. Items marked Rumour · unverified are unconfirmed and should be treated with caution. Compiled automatically; corrections welcome.