SALAMA appoints highly experienced Mid East insurance expert to head its Family Takaful division

His appointment precedes a major expansion by SALAMA in the personal insurance market. Shortly SALAMA will launch Family Takaful to compliment its already launched Health Takaful. Both innovative products are aimed at meeting the increasing demand for Shari'ah compliant personal insurance solutions.

"We have a strategic plan to aggressively expand our insurance product base and drive future profitability,"

said Dr Saleh Malaikah, CEO, SALAMA. "Although globally personal insurance is an important segment of insurance revenues, it continues to be a rarity in the Middle East, mainly due to adequate state benefits in the GCC, poor income in other countries and lack of knowledge and reservations about insurance on religious grounds. We believe the Takaful industry holds the key to unlocking this potential.

"Family Takaful, along with Health Takaful, will be offered in all markets in which SALAMA operates. We expect to see significant growth in the take up of both Family and Health Takaful products that will help drive profits upwards over the next five years."

With over 10 years experience in the Middle East, Paul, 52, was previously Head of Insurance Distribution at Saudi British Bank, part of the HSBC group. He is also a former Head of Strategic Business Development Middle East for Zurich Financial Services and is a Chartered Insurer.

"Paul has strong business development, planning, organisational, operational, marketing, change and project management skills which he has been able to demonstrate at board level," said Parvaiz Siddiq, General Manager, SALAMA Islamic Arab Insurance Company.

"Recently his competence has been demonstrated with success in establishing and developing profitable 'Greenfield' Bancassurance agreements in the Middle East. He brings a wealth of experience, gained in Europe and South America, as well as the Middle East, to SALAMA."

SALAMA forecasts the global Takaful and Re-Takaful industry will grow rapidly over the next five years, from US $1.7 billion to between US $7.5 billion and US $10 billion.

As part of its strategy for future growth, SALAMA is investing in developing its insurance products base in UAE and increased the capital of BEST Re - the world's largest Islamic reinsurance company - from US $55m to US $100m. It is expected the capital enhancement of BEST Re will help improve Standard & Poors (S & P) BBB "Good" and A M Best's B++ "Very Good" ratings. SALAMA also intends to set up a Dhs 1 billion Re-Takaful company in Saudi Arabia and a Dhs 100m Takaful business in Malaysia.

Other plans include an Initial Public Offering of shares in the Saudi IAIC Insurance Company, in which SALAMA will have a major stake. The company has already been incorporated and final approval for the IPO is awaited. SALAMA has also initiated a new Family Takaful company in Senegal, SOSAR Life, a sister company for SOSAR Aman, a subsidiary of SALAMA. Other developments include the launch of Family Takaful in Algeria. In addition, SALAMA is finalising the procedures to establish a Family Takaful company in Egypt.

In January SALAMA established the first Shariah compliant syndicate at Lloyds of London and in February, in a landmark development, it became the first UAE insurance company to offer its shares to nationals of other GCC countries. In 2005, SALAMA was listed on the Dubai Financial Market following an Initial Public Offering which helped raise the company's capital to Dhs 1 billion.