Article by Raja Yassin (she/her)
Propositions Manager at HAYAH Insurance Company P.J.S.C.
HAYAH tracker data shows residents feel financially secure, but many are not.
UAE residents feel good about their money. In the latest wave of the HAYAH Financial Confidence Tracker – a nationally representative YouGov survey of 1,066 residents fielded in June 2026 – seven in ten (69.7%) say they feel confident about their personal finances for the year ahead, and more people feel more secure than a year ago than feel less. On the surface, a healthy market.
Look one layer down and the picture changes. More than half of residents (51.6%) could not cover three months of essential expenses if their household income stopped tomorrow, and only a quarter hold a six-month buffer. Six in ten say they feel protected against shocks; a higher share than actually hold formal protection, and far higher than the number with a real financial cushion. The sense of security is running ahead of the safeguards behind it.
For a market that prices and carries risk, that gap is the story. And it is not a failure of awareness. Among those who save little or nothing, more than nine in ten point to cost of living, debt or no spare income, not to a lack of knowledge; fewer than one in twenty say they don’t know how or where to save. Residents are in fact saving more often than a year ago, just less deeply, as day-to-day costs absorb the difference. Protection is rising too, yet four in ten still hold no formal cover or remain undecided.
This is where the opportunity sits. When perceived security outpaces real resilience, demand for protection and savings forms quietly, ahead of the products designed to meet it. The task for insurers, reinsurers, brokers and advisers is less about persuading people they are exposed, and more about meeting them with solutions that fit real cash-flow: small, flexible, and built around how households actually live.
This is the thread we pull further in Rihla by HAYAH, our annual Report on Investments, Health, Life & AI, with a deeper read on protection, savings and resilience across the region. The tracker is the first look; Rihla is the full picture.
Rihla will be unveiled at Jalsa by HAYAH on 24 September, our annual gathering of the brokers and partners who shape this market. This year’s theme is “Empowering resilient futures”, and the question behind it: how HAYAH and the insurance actors driving the UAE market build that future together.
DIFCIA members are welcome to join us. To reserve a seat, write to us at Contact@hayah.com.