June 2010 - Newsletter

Interview of M. Chakib Abouzaid, CEO of Takaful Re

The first newsletter of Al-Sukuk.com will be focussed on Takaful Re. This company is based in Dubai (DIFC) and provides a complete range of retakaful services and products to Takaful and Islamic companies. Mr Chakib Abouzaid, CEO of Takaful Re has kindly accepted to answer our questions.

 Al-Sukuk.com: First of all, can you please tell us about your company and its origins?

Chakib Abouzaid: Takaful Re is a full fledged Islamic reinsurer or Retakaful; in 2005 Arab Insurance Group decided to launch Takaful Re being the first Company dedicated to Retakaful with a sizeable capital (paid USD 125 million and authorized 500 million). Others global and regional reinsurers decided to have also their Retakaful arm, and we have now 12 companies; some of them are fully fledged, and others are offering both Retakaful and reinsurance capacity for conventional insurers.

 Al-Sukuk.com: Many people are not very familiar about retakaful operations, can you explain us what it is and how it differs from conventional operations.

Chakib Abouzaid: Retakaful operators are offering reinsurance to Takaful or cooperatives companies; i.e. we are trying to make the full chain Shari’a compliant; since the beginning of the Islamic insurance in Sudan in 1979 and Takaful in Malaysia in 1984, the missing link was the non Shari’a compliance of the risk transfer (reinsurance cessions) to conventional reinsurers. Now, Retakaful are offering risk sharing instead of risk transfer and making all possible to meet the specific needs of our Takaful operators. As the direct Takaful, Retakaful companies must have their Shari’a Board, have two set of financial statements (policyholders fund and shareholders fund segregation), Retakaful are committed to the surplus distribution and our investments are all with Islamic banks and/or in Shari’a compliant instruments.

Download June Newsletter in order to have the full interview