DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/13a0f1/iran_insurance_rep) has announced the addition of the "Iran Insurance Report Q1 2012" report to their offering.
Business Monitor International's Iran Insurance Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, insurance associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Iran's insurance industry.
Iran's insurance sector has a number of strengths, including scale in terms of gross written premiums per annum. Bimeh Iran, the largest company that is a state-owned enterprise, is one of the largest underwriters in the Middle East and would rate as a reasonably large insurer in most countries. Non-life penetration has consistently remained slightly above 1% of GDP. Among other things, this suggests the regulatory regime is reasonably sound.
Iran's insurers have managed to survive in the face of various challenges - not least of which is the almost complete lack of access to the global reinsurance markets. Unlike in other Middle Eastern countries, Iran's insurance sector does not consist of a surprisingly large number of sub-scale non-life companies that are offshoots of local business interests that do not have a clear edge in the industry.
The sector is undergoing privatisation', via listings of companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange, and liberalisation', in that the decisions over products and pricing are moving from Bimeh Markazi Iran (the regulator and, to a certain extent, provider of reinsurance service) to the insurers themselves. However, in contrast to privatisation in other countries, the deals in Iran are not necessarily reducing government control and are certainly not increasing formerly state-owned companies' access to capital.
The limited data that is available suggests the main impact of liberalisation' is to transfer resources from shareholders of private sector companies (including the recently privatised' Bimeh Alborz, Bimeh Asia and Bimeh Dana) to the still state-controlled Bimeh Iran, employees and, to a certain extent, insurance customers.
Companies Mentioned:
- Bimeh Alborz
- Bimeh Asia
- Bimeh Dana
- Bimeh Iran
- Parsian Insurance
- Regional Company Profiles
- Allianz
- Arab Insurance Group (ARIG)
- Aviva
- AXA
- Chartis
- Generali
- HSBC Insurance
- MAPFRE
- MetLife ALICO
- RSA
- Zurich Financial Services
For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/13a0f1/iran_insurance_rep