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Best takaful provider
It’s a difficult year to decide on a global leader in takaful. In Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority directed all operators to align with its cooperative insurance model by the start of 2012. They have been required to change their internal accounting structures and stop using the wakalah and qard approaches. While the dust settles on this, Saudi operators have not been considered.
In any case, Malaysia appears to have the best-managed takaful businesses; according to Ernst & Young, whose annual report on the takaful industry is a benchmark, Malaysian operators have a relatively high ratio of average gross written contributions per operator, and unlike other areas of Islamic finance in Malaysia, where overcapacity appears to be in sight, takaful is just 10% of the Malaysian insurance industry and so has plenty of room to grow.
Takaful Ikhlas started out nine years ago and today has 400,000 policyholders and 1.8 million registered certificate holders for its general products, sold through an agency network of more than 5,000 agents across Malaysia. It is considered an innovator in bringing insurance solutions to Shariah compliance; new initiatives in the last 12 months include policies for foreign students, civil servants, personal accident and group term. So far Ikhlas sells 52 general takaful products from medical and driving to big bikes.
One westerner who deals with Malaysian takaful operators describes Ikhlas as “operating at a higher standard” than others. Its future appears bright.
