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MarketSingle-sourceSaudi Arabia
S&P leaves Saudi P&C insurance risk in the intermediate band
S&P's latest insurance industry and country risk assessment keeps Saudi property and casualty cover at intermediate, weighing moderately high country risk against moderately low industry risk. Low product risk, high barriers to entry and tight regulation underpin profitability, and with roughly four-fifths of premiums sitting in short-tail motor and medical, claims stay fairly predictable. The read is steady rather than spectacular: a structurally sound market still hostage to the wider economic and geopolitical backdrop.
MarketConfirmedUAEOmanQatar
Iran turns its Strait of Hormuz transit insurance into a mandate
Tehran's newly formed Persian Gulf Strait Authority now requires every vessel crossing the Strait of Hormuz to carry an Iranian-approved policy, written through an insurer it has just stood up for the purpose. Cover is free during the 60-day window tied to the US-Iran memorandum, but the market is treating transit charges as a near-certainty once that lapses. For Gulf marine underwriters and reinsurers the worry is less today's premium than the precedent of a coastal state pricing access to an international chokepoint.
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