KUWAIT CITY, Oct 13, (KUNA): Kuwait Projects Company (KIPCO) and Fairfax Financial Holdings signed recently a deal to develop the insurance market in the MENA region as part of an expansion plan.
This came at a press conference held here Wednesday announcing a deal wherein Fairfax, a global insurance and reinsurance group based in Canada, bought 39.2 percent, around KD 59.8 million ($208.6 million), of shares within Gulf Insurance Company (GIC) from KIPCO.
KIPCO’s Vice Chairman Faisal Al-Ayyar said at the conference “We have said for some time that the regional insurance market is largey utapped because of the levels of personal and commercial insurance here are far lower than in Europe, parts of Asia, and North America.” Al-Ayyar noted that Kuwait is an exciting local insurance scene and both of KIPCO and Fairfax sought to develop the insurance sector via such deal.
He also added that KIPCO had been seeking partnership with world renownded business firms with an intention to expand on a regional level.

“Fairfax proved to be a very shrewd partner in other similar deals throught the world,” stated the official who indicated that hopefully the signed deal would bring on good results.
Fairfax’s Chairman, Prem Wasta, said on his part “We have been considering the prospects for insurance industry in the MENA region for some time and we expect to see a significant long-term growth as an increasing number of comsumers see how insurance products can help them.” He noted that Fairfax had experience in such field in countries like India, Brazil, Singapore, and others, saying “we see no reason why this region should not see similar growth.” Meanwhile, GIC’s Managing Director and CEO Khaled Al-Hassan affirmed that the deal would open doors for GIC within the region and the world due to Fairfax’s international operations.
Locally, Al-Hassan hoped that the government would work on legistlations to improve the situation for the insurance sector, adding that insurance companies would play an integral part in the state’s four-year development plan especially within insurance of oil projects in addition to others.