Travel Insurance and Assistance in the GCC Countries

Travel Insurance and Assistance in the GCC Countries investigates the market for stand-alone travel insurance and assistance in six countries, namely, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. This market is predicted by Finaccord to rise to a value of over USD 150 million in gross written premiums by 2019 and it should prove to be resilient in spite of a challenging economic environment. Moreover, the competitive and distribution dynamics of the market continue to evolve with new channels emerging and partnerships with major distributors subject to regular change.

The study comprises the following unique features:

• data spanning 2011 to 2015 for the underlying travel market in each country with segmentations by type of journey (between holiday and business trips);

• data for the size of the market for stand-alone travel insurance and assistance in each country between 2011 and 2015 in terms of premiums and policies, with a segmentation between single-trip and annual cover;

• analyses of the share of distribution relationships of travel insurance providers split between travel trade, transportation and financial organisations, based on a primary survey of over 600 actual and potential distributors of stand-alone travel policies including airlines, banks, ferry / railway operators, insurance brands and specialised lenders, plus both traditional and online travel trade entities;

• a review of other direct and affinity distribution channels used in each country including automotive clubs, direct sales, online aggregators, other online brands and retailers, plus cover packaged with payment cards and bank accounts;

• estimates for the market share of travel insurance and assistance gross premiums for the top ten underwriters of this type of cover in 2015 in each country and across all six countries combined with these data points expressed as a percentage range (e.g. 5.0% to 7.5%);

• forecasts to 2019 for both the underlying travel market and for the size of the market for stand-alone travel insurance and assistance in each country in terms of premiums and policies, with the same segmentations as those specified above for the period from 2011 to 2015.

The report, which represents an update and expansion to previous Finaccord studies on the subject, is accompanied by an Excel PartnerBASE™ dataset that details the travel insurance partnerships identified, plus a convenient market data annexe, also in Excel format. This annexe can be used as a convenient source of data already in Excel format which means that there is no need for users to re-enter data from the PDF report into their own Excel worksheets.

For further information about this research, please access the table of contents and series prospectus by clicking on the corresponding links to the left-hand side of this page, or e-mail [email protected].