Toward the end of last month, insurance managers from the Middle East and North Africa crowded onto the website of Saudi Arabia’s Monetary Agency (SAMA) to download the final version of the kingdom’s new insurance law. Many an executive surrounded himself during the following days with the new Lebanese insurance draft law and the Saudi law. Years in the making, the Saudi law defines a new insurance regime that provides sector companies with a window to a potential boom in what is currently the region’s most interesting insurance market, with a per capita expenditure of merely $46 in 2002 and an insurance penetration of 0.35%. According to statistics published by Middle Eastern ratings agency i.e., this makes Saudi Arabia the lowest ranking oil economy in terms of insurance penetration. The law’s announcement also points to an issue at the heart of the Arab world’s insurance industry concerns: the disparate regulatory
