The 5th Annual Middle East and Africa Insurance Summit commenced today at , Habtoor Grand Resort & Spa Hotel, gathering insurance experts from across the region to address burning issues and challenges faced by the MEA region and brainstorm on solutions that will achieve the vision to have a regulated, consolidated and lucrative business model in the dynamic and ever-growing insurance sector.

The conference was opened to a keynote speech entitled “ The Dynamic Insurance Sector of the Middle East - Updates for the year and future vision ”, by one of the keynote speaker for this summit, His Excellency Eng. Saleh Al Dhahiry, Chairman - Emirates Insurance Association, U.A.E.

Robin Ali, Consultant- Health Funding Department - Dubai Health Authority, in his session focused on the need for regulations in insurance in order to protect the consumers, with emphasis on current trends in health Insurance in the region, perspective of DHA in protecting consumer rights in insurance and future action plan by DHA.

The Regulatory Panel Discussion - Overview on Regulations and Market Changes - Impact on the Middle East and Africa Insurance industry, was joined by renowned CEOs in the industry such as George Kabba, CEO - | UIB (DIFC) Ltd., Mary Nkoimu, Head, Composite Insurers Supervision - Technical Insurance Regulatory Authority-Kenya, Robin Ali, Consultant- Health Funding Department - Dubai Health Authority, Anwar Abu Sbaitan, CEO - Rasmala Investment Bank Ltd. , Atinc Yilmaz , CEO
- Marsh Emirates.

Aftab Hassan, CEO at Arya Insurance Brokerage will address the audience and clarify frequently asked doubts with regards to the recent regulation of the “Compulsory Health Insurance law for all Dubai residents”, and in an exclusive session the Cyprus Insurance industry and overview of Trust Group was elaborated by Christakis Christodoulou, CEO - Trust International Insurance Co. Ltd., Cyprus.

Iqbal Mankani, MD at , M.I.M.Business Consultants - Dubai, Board Member & Director at EFU General Insurance Co, Pakistan enlightened the audience about UAE‘s role as a major financial hub and the opportunities therein for the insurance industry.

Post lunch, Maxim Konovalenko, Director of the Insurance Department at Diasoft, informed the audience about the agile approach to selection of the insurance solution provider. He explained how in the modern changing economy, analysis on system architecture, suppliers and quality customer service needs are crucial to select on insurance service provider. Diasoft is the Gold Sponsor for this summit.

Gautam Datta, CEO - Al Madina Takaful, Oman will provide an “Overview of Takaful product innovations and offerings in the region”, while a Technical Session on Blue Ocean strategy and Takaful Industry, will be conducted by Javed Abbasi, Director – GISBA, followed by a session by Mohammed El Dishish, CEO -Emirates Re.

The concluding session of the day will be the TAKAFUL PANEL, titled as “Analysis and overview of the current market on takaful”. The industry experts joining this panel include Mohammed El Dishish, CEO - Emirates Re; Oussama Kaissi, CEO - Watania; Javed Abbasi, Director – GISBA, Lakhdar Moussi, General Manager - LM Consultancy SPC and Ghassan Marrouche, CEO -Noor Takaful.

Tomorrow, day two of the conference will witness speaker presentations, panel discussions from Chartered Insurance Institute, Continental Reinsurance, Avon Insurance Brokers L.L.C., Lockton MENA, AXA Cooperative Insurance, Asia Capital Re, Bahrain National Life Assurance Company and many more.

Bin Shabib and Associates (BSA), is the regulatory and advisory partner of this summit which is supported by The International Insurance Society (IIS), Solvency II Association, Global Institute of Islamic Banking, Insurance and Consultancy (GIIBIC) and International Compliance Association.