Car accidents in Lebanon increase, on average, 12 to 15 percent every year according to KunHadi, an organization dedicated to road safety education. The group says that on New Year’s Eve 2010 alone, there were 24 car crashes in Lebanon resulting in 28injuries and two fatalities. The numbers scream for a robust and active insurance sector but instead Lebanon’s automotive insurance system is far behind global standards. Its insurance industry is still the leader in the region, even after Swiss Re’s “World Insurance Report2009” said that insurance penetration as a percentage of gross domestic product had dropped from 3.4 percent in 2008 to 3.1 percent in 2009. Estimates suggest that the industry has probably reached $1 billion in premiums. But Fateh Beckdache, general manager of BLOM Bank’s Arope Insurance, warns that any premiums growth in 2010is due to inflation and not growth. Without a financial crisis on which to
