The insurance sector in Pakistan has seen progress and acceptance in recent years, driven significantly by corporate insurance facilities. However, the market’s mass potential remains largely untapped, held back by limited public awareness and other structural barriers, and, for some consumers historically, by the lack of accessible Shariah-compliant solutions.
The country’s growing trend of Islamisation in banking, financing institutions, trade opportunities and insurance setups offers fresh opportunities to increase awareness and acceptance for these concepts while being Shariah compliant.
Insurance opportunities, adapted with necessary Shariah-approved regulations, are becoming popular under the takaful umbrella, a move applauded by the local actuarial communities.
Actuaries help takaful-based businesses, employers and consumers safeguard their interests by combining mass market trends, analysis and technologies with Shariah-specific scenarios. This way, takaful stakeholders can avail the benefits of cutting-edge actuarial knowledge while complying with appropriate Islamic financial rulings.
This highlights the potential that actuarial students and professionals can utilise in a growing and evolving takaful sector. By bringing their generalist and analytical skills to more traditional Islamic finance traditions, actuaries in Pakistan can add value to local insurance setups and scale up the country’s actuarial and takaful sectors on equal, compatible measures.
Zain Ibrahim
Karachi
