As we wrap up 2025, I want to thank all our members for another busy and successful year at DIFCIA. From new partnerships to well-attended events and work streams, the energy across our community keeps growing.
We’re delighted to welcome our newest members this quarter, with more already in the pipeline for early 2026. It’s a great time to be part of the DIFC insurance community and the year ahead looks even more promising. With a number of exciting events planned for the next few months we look forward to the support of the whole community in making these as interactive, educational and fun as possible.
We’ll soon be reaching out about next year’s event calendar and opportunities to host or sponsor sessions. Stay tuned and get ready to make 2026 another standout year together.
A special thank you to our Chairman, Phil Story, for his continued leadership, and to our DIFCIA Ambassadors and Board members for the time and effort they dedicate to representing the Association throughout the year. Your commitment makes a real difference.
Regards
The DIFCIA Team
When I first joined the insurance industry, I thought life insurance was simply about preparing for the inevitable. But over time, I’ve come to see it as something far more empowering—a tool for resilience, dignity, and peace of mind.
Life insurance is no longer just about death benefits. Today, it’s about living benefits too. With the rise of critical illness cover, we’re seeing a shift in how people protect themselves and their families. A heart attack, cancer diagnosis, or stroke doesn’t just affect your health—it can derail your finances, career, and emotional wellbeing. That’s where critical illness insurance steps in, offering a lump sum that helps bridge the gap between recovery and financial stability.
I’ve seen firsthand how this coverage can be life changing. One client, a young father, was diagnosed with lymphoma. His policy allowed him to take time off work, focus on treatment, and still pay the mortgage. He told me, “It gave me the freedom to fight without worrying about falling behind.”
In a region like ours, where family and community are central, this kind of protection isn’t just practical—it’s compassionate. It’s about ensuring that when life throws a curveball, we have the means to catch it.
As professionals in the insurance space, we have the privilege of guiding people toward these safeguards. And with every policy we write, we’re not just selling a product—we’re offering hope.
So, let’s keep the conversation going. Let’s keep innovating. And let’s keep reminding people that life insurance isn’t about fearing the worst—it’s about preparing for the best possible outcome, even in the face of adversity.
As finance functions across the insurance sector continue to evolve, the pressure to modernise is growing. At Phinsys, we believe finance transformation doesn’t need to be overwhelming. With the right approach, it can be purposeful, structured, and highly rewarding.
Moving beyond digitisation
The past year marked a turning point for many insurers. Finance teams are no longer simply automating tasks—they’re aiming to build integrated ecosystems that connect finance, underwriting, and claims. The goal is to unlock real-time insights that support faster, smarter decision-making.
At Phinsys, we’ve developed tools that help finance teams shift their focus from operational firefighting to strategic contribution. Whether supporting IFRS 17 compliance or streamlining month-end processes, our platform is designed to increase visibility, reduce manual effort, and deliver measurable value.
Addressing the legacy challenge
Despite this progress, many insurers are still tied to legacy systems that weren’t built for today’s demands. These outdated platforms can be expensive to maintain, difficult to integrate, and prone to creating data silos that slow down decision-making.
Tackling this challenge doesn’t require a wholesale system replacement. We work closely with clients to adopt a phased approach—breaking transformation into manageable steps, achieving early wins, and building confidence as they go.
The evolving role of the CFO
Today’s CFO is expected to do more than oversee financial reporting. They’re increasingly responsible for shaping business strategy, managing risk, and responding to shifting regulatory and market demands.
This evolution places new demands on finance teams, who must deliver accurate, timely data that supports agility and insight. Our role at Phinsys is to help remove the operational burden—automating reconciliations, enabling faster close cycles, and providing a single source of truth that finance leaders can trust.
By doing so, we help create the space CFOs need to focus on what really matters: driving strategic value and guiding the business forward.
Preparing for what comes next
Dubai is rapidly establishing itself as a hub for insurance innovation. With a strong appetite for digital adoption, forward-thinking regulation, and a growing reinsurance presence, the region is accelerating its finance transformation journey. Leaders are prioritising scalable, integrated solutions that support growth and compliance.
In the UK and London markets, finance transformation is well underway. The focus has shifted toward enhancing agility, embedding real-time insights, and delivering strategic value through mature, data-driven systems.
In the US, insurers face the challenge of scale and complexity. Multi-entity structures and fragmented systems drive demand for automation, standardisation, and tools that offer a consolidated, strategic view of financial performance.
While each market differs in pace and focus, the priorities remain consistent: reducing complexity, improving accuracy, and enabling confident, data-led decision-making.
A practical approach to transformation
Ultimately, transformation doesn’t have to be a massive, one-off project. With the right support, it becomes a journey of continuous improvement—delivering both immediate results and long-term resilience.
For further information, please contact Stuart Conibear (stuart.conibear@phinsys.com).
Risk was not always a technical calculation. In Antiquity, it was seen as destiny or divine punishment. By the 17th century, with Lloyd’s Coffee House in London, it became probabilistic — the birth of modern marine insurance.
The Industrial Revolution created urban and labor hazards, the first self-inflicted risks. The 20th century expanded collective protection through statistics and social security. Globalization then turned risk systemic. And today, volatility has become permanent.
This genealogy matters because every transformation in the perception of risk generated new forms of protection. Today we live in what I call the age of Liquid Risk — a concept inspired by Zygmunt Bauman’s idea of “liquid modernity,” where the solid structures of the past dissolve into a world that is fluid, unstable, and where risks are systemic, volatile, asymmetric, and unbounded.
In this context, the traditional insurance model, based on annual contracts, historical data, and static underwriting cycles, is no longer sufficient. The past has ceased to be a reliable predictor of the future. Extreme climate events and social disruptions unfold in seconds, while many insurance systems still operate in cycles of weeks.
The answer lies in a new paradigm: adaptive products supported by an event-driven technological architecture. This means parametric covers that trigger automatically from multiple signals; ESG-linked protections that integrate reputational and regulatory risk; embedded solutions that follow the client’s context; and continuous underwriting, recalibrated through sensors, satellite data, and digital twins.
This transformation can be visualized through the framework below, which illustrates how protection must evolve from episodic and standardized to continuous, contextual, and adaptive.
The call to action is clear: insurance must operate in real time, with the same fluidity as the risks it faces. Protection cannot be a lifejacket handed out after shipwreck, but must be a radar, a compass, and a sail adjusting to the wind during the journey.
If insurance is to remain society’s infrastructure of trust, the industry must evolve from a solid past into a liquid system of protection — capable of anticipating, adapting, and responding at the very moment risk occurs.
Running a business is often romanticized as a journey of vision, strategy, and leadership. And while that’s partly true, there’s another side that rarely makes the glossy covers: the quiet 2 a.m. moments where decisions weigh heavier than any title. It’s not the day-to-day that keeps CEOs up at night—it’s the future.
Navigating a Complex Global and Regional Landscape
CEOs today must operate in a world that is anything but predictable. In regions like the Middle East, geopolitical instability, economic reforms, and fast-evolving regulatory frameworks demand constant vigilance, agility, and strategic foresight. A single crisis in a neighboring country can send shockwaves through markets. A regulatory shift can alter how risk is priced or how clients are served across borders. It’s a high-wire act, with little room for error.
Beyond regional challenges, global macroeconomic pressures continue to mount. Inflation, capital market volatility, and a rising tide of populism and protectionism are reshaping international trade and business norms. Even in traditionally conservative industries like insurance—built on predictability and risk modeling—the operating environment has become fundamentally uncertain.
The Unseen Risks: Cyber and Climate
Among the most pressing concerns across boardrooms today are the systemic and evolving risks of cybersecurity and climate change.
Cyber risk has transformed into a board-level crisis point. No longer confined to IT departments, it now affects operational continuity, regulatory compliance, and brand integrity. For firms handling sensitive client data—especially in insurance and financial services—the threat of a breach poses existential consequences. A single incident could compromise client trust, regulatory licenses, and hard-won reputations. The challenge lies not only in mitigating risk but in staying ahead of threats that evolve daily in scope and sophistication.
Equally urgent is the environmental transformation underway. Climate change is already redefining risk in ways that demand our attention today. Insurers are witnessing increased property damage claims, more frequent business interruptions, and growing uncertainty in modeling climate-exposed industries. The demand from clients has shifted from protection to a desire for actionable insights, —they expect their brokers and advisors to provide actionable guidance on how to remain resilient in a warmer, more volatile world.
The Weight of High-Stakes Decisions
Leadership at the executive level is defined not by routine choices but by navigating trade-offs where no perfect option exists. Invest in digital transformation or expand into a volatile market? Prioritize new hiring or maintain financial flexibility? The stakes here exceed operational concerns; they influence the very course of the organization, its workforce morale, and its relationship with stakeholders. In industries where outcomes are measured by profit and long-term trust, decision-making carries amplified consequences. The impact extends far beyond the balance sheet—it touches people, reputations, partnerships, and the very legacy of the institution.
Why the Team Matters More Than Ever
In this landscape of continuous disruption, the strength of a leadership team becomes a defining asset. Resilient organizations are rarely built by individual visionaries—they are the product of aligned teams, unified culture, and shared commitment.
Whether it’s client advisors navigating complex claims, compliance experts interpreting shifting regulations, or IT teams defending against cyber threats, modern enterprises rely on deeply interconnected human systems. The integrity, adaptability, and discipline of a company’s people have become its greatest competitive differentiators.
Across regional offices, a unified purpose grounded in shared values provides cohesion. In the most successful firms, the focus is relational, not transactional. Their role goes beyond selling products—they deliver clarity during crisis, guide clients through uncertainty, and stand beside them when risk becomes real. That level of service is impossible without a workforce that believes in the mission and is empowered to lead.
Looking Ahead: From Fear to Responsibility
It’s not fear, but responsibility, that causes CEOs to lose sleep at night. The responsibility to anticipate the next disruption before it hits. The responsibility to protect employees, serve clients, and future-proof the organization. The responsibility to lead decisively in an age that punishes hesitation.
But within that weight lies a sense of conviction. That with the right leadership culture, a disciplined mindset, and a willingness to adapt. Rather than just surviving disruption, organizations become the architects of what comes next.
Back in the 80’s, UAE was known as the sandpit. This saying still holds true but, also, it doesn’t. When I look down Sheikh Zayed Road, there are skyscrapers and buildings that an 80’s kid like me would never have imagined having come up. Yet, this country with its amazing leadership has made it possible.
I still remember the school bus ride from Karama to Safa was a long stretch of sand and road. The tallest tower standing at that time was The World Trade Center. A little while after we were given the unique Burj Al Arab, back in 1999.
Roadworks and construction soon started for the Metro and Burj Khalifa. These were then inaugurated in 2009 & 2010 respectively. I come from the time where ‘Hobby’ used to be the most favourite chocolate and a mall that can be covered in 20 minutes was our shopping spree/date nights hangout.
In recent years, a lot of investment has gone into making UAE a hot spot for tourism, investment and otherwise. We had the opportunity to host the EXPO a couple of years ago and we continue to grow from strength to strength. The new UAE economy is very different to the one we knew of previously. It is much more diverse, open-minded and knowledge-based. They know that there is a shift needed, to move away from oil and into AI, to move away from Petrol and into tourism, to move away from resting on our laurels and into real estate. This new UAE has many more things to achieve. We have beaten most of the world in building tech-driven ecosystems. The rise of fintech, venture capital and innovation hubs like DIFC Innovation Hub are just small steps that are being taken to capitalize and grow the UAE to an unimaginable level. The next decade of economic growth will be defined not just by technology and capital, but by the policies that enable innovation and the skills that unlock human potential.
I’m very excited to see what the future holds for the UAE, are you?
One of the principal takeaways from the report was that natural catastrophe volatility in the region is increasingly notable, with the February 2023 earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria, as well as the April 2024 UAE pluvial flood event being of particular note.
This resulted in significant industry losses and a reassessment of the region’s natural catastrophe risk exposures, which for some risks like flood were previously underappreciated in arid climates. The recent increase in natural catastrophe events has placed upward pressure on reinsurance pricing, particularly for property, engineering, and energy lines of business that are heavily ceded to the reinsurance market.
Moreover, reinsurers have responded by tightening terms and conditions, raising attachment points, reducing profit commissions and event limits, and increasing retentions to higher return periods at renewals in 2024. AM Best notes that these trends have continued into 2025, albeit at a reduced level. These measures reflect a strategic shift towards protecting underwriting margins against heightened catastrophe risk and inflationary loss cost pressures. Improving pricing adequacy and underwriting discipline have contributed to stronger combined ratios and improved returns on equity for many reinsurers across the region.
The growing frequency of natural catastrophe events has underscored the importance of enhanced pricing models and risk assessment tools for regional reinsurers. Companies are increasingly investing in their internal modelling capabilities and leveraging third-party catastrophe models to ensure appropriate risk selection and pricing adequacy. Nevertheless, their ability to compete with global reinsurers remains constrained by their limited scale, narrower access to proprietary modelling tools, and lower levels of geographic diversification.
An opportunity for MENA reinsurers includes government-backed natural catastrophe schemes which have emerged as an important mechanism to address the growing protection gap and to manage market-wide volatility in North Africa and Türkiye. Algeria, Morocco, and Türkiye have established mandatory catastrophe insurance schemes, with the latter two schemes triggered and functioning effectively in 2023 following severe events. Given the success of the existing schemes, discussions on the rollout of similar schemes in other countries continue to gain momentum. These programmes often require mandatory cessions to local reinsurers, boosting premium volumes and helping to stabilise underwriting results by distributing catastrophe risks across a wider base.
Overall, while the sustained hard reinsurance market has benefitted MENA reinsurers by allowing them to re-price business at more adequate levels, the heightened frequency of catastrophe losses continues to pose a challenge. Effective management of pricing adequacy, reserving, and exposure controls will remain key determinants of underwriting profitability and balance sheet resilience in the near to medium term, particularly as climate risks and economic inflation evolve across the region.
Vasilis Katsipis is General Manager, AM Best Europe – Rating Services Ltd – DIFC Branch
Website: AM Best Dubai
In today’s Global, volatile geopolitical environment, organisations across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are increasingly reviewing their insurance strategies, with a particular focus on enhancing political violence (PV) coverage.
The rationale is understandable – boards and investors are increasingly calling for broad PV policies that they believe will safeguard their corporate social responsibility (CSR) priorities and, for listed firms, preserve investor confidence and secure capital commitments. Within this mindset is a belief that robust PV protection goes beyond merely addressing potential damages; it demonstrates to stakeholders and analysts a commitment to forward-thinking risk oversight, bolstering corporate governance and market positioning.
An evolving risk profile in the GCC
Yet the actual risk landscape in the GCC is very different to that in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa, Pakistan or certain CIS geographies. Exposures here tend to be infrequent, often limited to isolated incidents rather than large-scale disruptions like strikes, riots, or civil commotion (SRCC). In contrast, some of our neighbouring regions contend with more regular and intense occurrences, from protracted disputes to widespread instability and violent civilnrest.
This distinction underscores a challenge: an excessive and often unnecessary procurement of PV coverage in lower-exposure GCC settings. Businesses in the GCC frequently pursue all-encompassing policies including everything from terrorism and sabotage through to outright war or internal civil war. One key reason is that these expansive terms were once accessible at negligible expense when it was a buyer’s market. The issue is that a continuation of this approach inflates costs without necessity and strains reinsurance resources and ultimately hinders firms with legitimate high-risk needs in other locations.
Navigating reinsurance market shifts
When markets become more challenging – spurred by geopolitical events such as those in Russia-Ukraine or China-Taiwan – reinsurers face heightened vulnerabilities. During such times, policy restructures or pricing recalibrations become necessary for long-term sustainability. In this environment, the common request in GCC countries for full political violence coverage – including war and civil war at maximum limits for all assets – should be re-examined.
In the specific context of the GCC, a realistic probable maximum loss (PML) analysis should reflect the nuanced nature of PV insurance and in-country risk. Over the past 20 years, PV has matured into a responsive category that is increasingly attuned to shifting hazards. This must remain the case. Within the context of a more challenging insurance market and geopolitical realities, a further differentiated approach is not only adequate but highly recommended.
Advancing informed risk strategies
Within the context of today’s global realities, the time is right for fresh dialogue on GCC vulnerabilities. Such conversations should shift away from routine transactions shaped by past practices, towards a future-focused and differentiated approach. The reality is that organisations that reach for full-peril coverage are very often overlooking the low risk of war or civil war in stable GCC areas like the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, or Bahrain. Clients might, therefore, consider focusing on coverage that matches their actual exposure instead and in turn could provide a more economical cost of insurance.
The job of a trusted insurance broker and risk consultant with deep knowledge of the global and regional PV sector is to empower clients with fact-based choices, delivering analytical perspectives that can lead to bespoke policies. This approach prioritises endurance over curtailment: shielding assets without excess expenditure on unlikely events. After all, if your operations are not in a conflict hotspot, why insure as though they are? Embracing this perspective not only aligns critical sustainability objectives with fiscal prudence but also cultivates lasting adaptability as we face a future of dynamic global challenges.
The 19th Century Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz memorably said that “War is the continuation of politics by other means”. The same can be said of commercial disputes that cannot be resolved, and need to be referred to litigation.
Litigation need not be an end in itself, but it can be the ‘continuation of business by other means’.
Where the commercial battle is to be fought is vitally important. Good contractual wordings will stipulate where disputes between the parties are to be resolved, and which court or tribunal will decide them. However, where the contractual terms are not clearcut, there may be a number of options to consider in terms of where the dispute is to be referred.
Where a dispute will play out in the UAE is made even more important given the significant difference in legal systems that might apply. The UAE regulators require insurance related disputes to be referred to quasi-judicial committees to make an initial decision (or decline jurisdiction). The ‘onshore’ UAE courts will apply civil law and procedure to court cases, whereas the Financial Centre courts in the DIFC and ADGM will apply common law and procedure. Arbitration tribunals will apply whatever rules the parties have selected, or will default to the rules of the particular arbitration centre. Each of these scenarios can result in very different ways in how the dispute is adjudicated, including the length of time, the costs involved, how evidence will be considered, costs recoveries, privacy considerations, and the predictability of judgments or awards.
In recent years, the DIFC Court has made a number of significant rulings clarifying when it will accept jurisdiction over insurance and reinsurance disputes. A number of key principles have emerged, including:
Although every effort is usually applied to avoiding it, litigation (like war) can be used as an effective tool for resolving disputes by applying commercial pressure on the other side. Maximising the leverage and the strength of a party’s position is a crucial consideration in deciding when and where to commence proceedings. Understanding the relative merits of each potential forum ought to be a key consideration at the outset of any dispute. Whilst your day in court may never arrive, deciding the battleground where the dispute will be fought is often crucial to the outcome of the litigation.
Clyde & Co has acted on all of the jurisdiction matters referenced in this article and we are able to provide focussed commercial advice on how best to progress a dispute in order to achieve the commercial result required.
When the UAE corporate tax regime first came into effect, most of us in the industry knew it would reshape how we think about compliance. But it wasn’t until this first filing season that the reality truly set in.
Working within the insurance and financial services sector, I saw first-hand how much coordination and interpretation this transition required. The law looked straightforward on paper, but applying it across multiple entities, regional transactions, and systems was another story. Every discussion — from deductible expenses to intercompany recharges — reminded us that corporate tax was more than just a finance exercise; it was a whole-organisation effort.
At the start, there was a lot of uncertainty. What exactly would the EmaraTax corporate tax module look like? Would the filing process resemble VAT, or be something entirely new? As deadlines approached, those questions quickly turned into checklists, reconciliations, and a few long nights aligning accounting profit to taxable income. Yet through all of it, there was a strong sense of collective learning — teams coming together across finance, tax, and legal to interpret, adapt, and document.
For DIFC-based intermediaries like us, the cross-border nature of insurance added extra layers of complexity. Transfer pricing, reinsurance flows, and commission recognition all demanded fresh analysis under the new regime. If I am honest, a lot of the work happened in the final stretch. Systems were still being refined, clarifications were still being interpreted, and teams were juggling multiple moving pieces at once. It was a rush — but a valuable one. The experience forced us to identify gaps, build faster coordination, and rethink how we manage information across entities.
Now, as we look back, there is genuine progress to acknowledge. The first filings may have been intense, but they also built a new rhythm of compliance — one grounded in structure, accountability, and collaboration. Automation, which once felt optional, has quickly become essential.
Looking ahead, the focus will likely shift from getting it done to getting it right — refining transfer pricing documentation, improving data accuracy, and embedding compliance into everyday operations.
The first year of corporate tax wasn’t just about meeting a deadline. It was about setting a foundation. And while it certainly tested our patience and precision, it also strengthened the way we work together — across teams, across regions, and across an evolving regulatory landscape.
As most of you I think already know, I shall be retiring from Lloyd’s at the end of this year, although I shall still be based here having set up my own consulting business. This is not a cunningly disguised pitch for some work but some thoughts on the insurance community in DIFC and the DIFC IA.
The growth of the DIFC over recent years is something other places look at with respect touching on awe, and it has a lot to do with the efforts made and still being made by the government to make this the destination of the best global talent. I know from my conversations with the DIFC that they continue to set even more challenging targets for the Centre. And I don’t doubt that together we will achieve them.
That is not to ignore the very real challenges facing us. Other international hubs are not going to sit back and watch DIFC eat their lunch. We are going to need to find ways of increasing and facilitating the flow of new talent into our market and ensure that the cost of doing business allows us to remain competitive with other centres.
But for the purposes of this article, there is one aspect that I feel is vital. The DIFC wants to be a top three global financial hub and it can be. But it is going to be a whole lot more difficult without a body representing the whole insurance community. I can’t think of any of the leading global hubs that don’t have one.
Under Phil’s stewardship the DIFC IA is significantly larger and better balanced than it was and he and Chantal deserve everyone’s gratitude for the unstinting effort they put in.
Yet as well know there are many (too many) of the leading names in our industry present in DIFC and yet not members of the IA. As a group we need to commit to the hard grind of persuading these firms that being part of the IA adds value for them and the centre as a whole.
I shall certainly be supporting those efforts. The DIFC has given me so much in my career and I am happy to try to give something back in my new guise.
Thanks everyone!
Regional Manager Middle East & Turkey
Lloyd’s