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.
Top story
Leading marine war underwriters have told brokers they will not write war cargo cover on Red Sea voyages carrying any Saudi connection, following Houthi attacks on Saudi-flagged tankers, according to the Financial Times. The binding constraint has shifted from price to availability, which is a far harder problem for exporters to work around.
A VLCC bound for Saudi Arabia reversed course rather than approach Bab el-Mandeb, which gCaptain reads as evidence that the declared blockade is now driving routing decisions and not just premium levels. Voyages that never happen become a trade and revenue problem well before they become a claims problem.
Liva Insurance told the Saudi Exchange it has been awarded a one-year group life contract by Banque Saudi Fransi worth more than a tenth of its 2025 insurance revenue of SAR 575m. Bank distribution remains one of the faster routes to scale for mid-sized Saudi insurers, although single-client concentration of that size cuts both ways.
Chubb Arabia disclosed a two-year engineering risk cover awarded by Larsen & Toubro Saudi Arabia. Engineering and erection all-risks business stays closely tied to the Kingdom's construction pipeline, which continues to set the pace for that line locally.
BKIC has joined Bahrain's Employee Loyalty Rewards Programme, a national initiative that recognises staff through monthly awards. Small news on its own, but retention is a live cost line for Gulf insurers competing over a thin pool of technical talent.
The Insurance Regulatory Unit has instructed entities subject to Law 125 of 2019 to refresh their beneficial ownership records on the Ministry of Commerce and Industry portal and file supporting extracts with the unit by 30 July. Wholly state-owned and listed entities sit outside the requirement, and the IRU has pointed to enforcement under the insurance law for those that miss the date.
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.