The 2022 financial year was a year of recovery for the insurance industry as it overcame the worst of the covid-19 pandemic. Despite challenging circumstances, our company succeeded in maintaining the momentum of profitable growth. We, therefore, take immense pride in saying that we at Takaful International Company strive to protect and support the people in good times and even more in their trying times. The last two years of the pandemic have required swift and decisive action, which we have strode through successfully.

We, at Takaful International, remain steadfast in our mission to protect our customers. We look forward to being a key participant in this journey by offering products that help our customers have optimal Sharia’a compliant cover and protection. This premise forms the bedrock of our business model. Our approach has always been need-based selling, offering customers the best-suited products. We aim to deepen our presence in the market by offering the right product to the right customer.

On a global economy level, surging commodity prices, supply chain bottlenecks caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have turbo-charged inflation worldwide. The global financial markets, too, therefore, remained volatile. In our view, there is a re-assessment of risk perception across the globe, which will fundamentally increase the demand for comprehensive insurance and risk management solutions. We are accordingly enhancing our Takaful solutions suite to make them conveniently available and laden with self-service capabilities for our customers.

During 2022, the Company continued its goal towards enhancing its digital technology solutions to simplify products, offer customers a seamless and paperless purchase process, deepen insurance penetration, and drive financial inclusion. Technology is also being leveraged to reimagine product propositions, customer experience, business strategies, and to provide a platform to support innovation. Given our focus on customer-centricity, we place a significant emphasis on our customer service standards. We are confident that despite the economic challenges in the past three years, Takaful International had emerged stronger and well-positioned to benefit from the long-term opportunities that our market in general and our sector in particular provide. In the coming decade, we will continue to stay focused on building a robust business model – one that stands on the solid pillars of prudent risk management, technological prowess, distribution network, passionate employees and above all, the trust of our customers. In everything that we do, our focus would be to create long-term value for our stakeholders.

Takaful’s selective underwriting approach by continuous risk measurement has helped avoid adverse selections. In addition, the Company has also adopted risk-based pricing approach for sourcing motor and medical business. In the health takaful space, the Company continues to focus on various mediums for customers to take informed decisions.

Growth in the economy was halted over the year 2022 due to the pandemic. Despite the lingering effects of the pandemic and global economic uncertainties, the business sentiment seems to be positive, largely owing to political stability and some reforms starting to come through and support of the Government. Going forward we are positive, and these measures will help the economy and especially the financial services sector as a good beneficiary of these developments. Increasing awareness about the benefits of insurance across the general population, along with increasing the penetration of general insurance in the country had provided good support for the Insurance market. Amid rising awareness, growing population of young working individuals, the Bahraini insurance sector is estimated to continue growing further. Increasing levels of digitisation are benefitting the sector in multiple ways; easy onboarding of new customers and improving customer experience and convenience. Additionally, increasing adoption of technology across the operations of insurance companies is driving efficiencies, leading to higher value creation for all stakeholders.

Our organisational aim is to meet the savings, wealth accumulation, health and protection needs of the growing and increasingly affluent residents of Bahrain. The continued success of Takaful International is a testament to the strength of the long-standing trust of our customers and various stakeholders. This has been underpinned by our shared commitment to providing quality products to our customers, delivering value to our shareholders, and contributing to the development of the economy.

The Cost Management Team is keenly driven to improve on its past performance and deliver better value to all stakeholders. Cost optimisation is achieved through the methodologies of cost planning, coordination, control and reporting of cost data. Latest and sophisticated cost-effective tools are deployed to improve functionality and to reduce costs, energy usage and environmental impact. Raising awareness of cost control among employees has also helped to lower organisational overheads. Synergy at various function levels with its parent company and group has also enable Takaful to improve its services and economies of cost at various levels.

During FY2022, the Company focussed on enhancing the quality of its services, lessening the time to market and improving customer service time. Scale and capability were created in operations function to facilitate business growth and serve various business verticals in the organisation.

Our strategy has been that of offering convenience to customers. To render this strategy in action we developed an array of products relevant to customers’ needs to provide a delightful onboarding experience and to deliver superior service to customers. During year 2022 Takaful introduced new products under its FGA and Medical segments, which was a step towards its strategy to develop and provide customised products to its esteemed customers.

Our strength is in growing and managing high quality, multidistribution channel, together with our expertise in providing innovative solutions to our customers’ protection needs and delivering service excellence.

During the year 2022, Takaful International has maintained credit rating of A- Excellent by AM Best. This indicates the Company’s sound position and strength and quality of services it offers to its customers and the trust of its various stakeholders.

All these helped your company to leverage opportunities and to maintain its leadership position in Bahrain’s Takaful business. We are thankful to all our stakeholders for their support extended in making us their preferred Insurance provider.

Overall management, general and administrative expenses for year 2022 amounted to BHD2.38M compared to previous year BHD2.35M.

Takaful has endeavored to maintain the expectations of its shareholders, policyholders, and other stakeholders. Nurturing long-term relationships and best services have always been the highest priority of Takaful. Since inception, Takaful has believed in building a culture of integrity and transparency and endeavored to revolve all its business activities based on its founding principles of fairness, kindness, efficiency and effectiveness based on the Islamic Insurance, cooperative sharing and caring principles.

Our Board of Directors believe in upholding the highest standards of governance and accountability. The board has taken cognizance of various regulatory changes in the overall governance framework and remains committed to imbibing the spirit of the law and regulations.

We expect a positive outlook for the year 2023 and expect a decent growth in business. Our main focus will be on quality services, prudent claims & expenses management expenses which will help the company to generate better results. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our Board of directors for their support and guidance.

I would also like to express my appreciation to the employees of Takaful International for their dedicated efforts towards achieving the goals of the company. Also thank our valued clients, reinsurance companies, Sharia’a board members, intermediaries and all our business partners for their support which has contributed to the growth of the company.

Congratulations to the team on achieving a year of strong financial performance and continuing to execute on its strategy to capture long-term growth opportunities in the insurance market.

We are a fundamentally strong institution and remain focused on building scale with profitability. With the right discipline and action, we see a positive road ahead and are poised for growth, in the year ahead. We continue to be guided by a clear purpose and a coherent strategy with a long-term view. With this, we are very optimistic about the future and are committed to creating measurable, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree value for all our stakeholders, our customers, shareholders, distributors, and employees alike.

As we move forward with all this in mind, I would like to express my gratitude to all our stakeholders for their continuous support and encouragement.

Thank you,