Retakaful business

We write retakaful business – that is to say, insurance business transacted in accordance with Islamic law – in both Southeast Asia and on the Arabian Peninsula. With the Bahrain-based Hannover ReTakaful we maintain a subsidiary that bears exclusive responsibility for transacting this line of business; we also have a local branch that writes traditional reinsurance in the Arab world.

Given a number of new start-ups by regional reinsurers, the year under review was notable for growing competition. Although the economic situation failed to build on the prosperity of the previous year, we were able to increase our premium income in 2009. The country with the largest volume was Saudi Arabia.

Overall, we are highly satisfied with the development of our retakaful business – which in our assessment continues to offer considerable potential.