In our time, the term insurance is going beyond the simple definition of protection or guarantee for a particular loss in return for a specific premium. In fact, insurance proved its status as one of the rising industries with substantial economic contribution as global insurance penetration reached 6.28% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2013. At the regional level, insurance penetration in the advanced Asian markets was the biggest at 11.55% of their GDP versus the slightest stake of 1.51% of the Middle East and Central Asia’s combined GDP. However, the top 3 countries in terms of insurance penetration were: Taiwan (17.6% of GDP), South Africa (15.4% of GDP) and Hong Kong (13.2% of GDP). As for the lowest insurance penetration rates, Egypt, Nigeria and Kuwait posted the worst economic contributions of insurance to GDP at 0.7%, 0.6% and 0.5%, respectively.
When it comes to the Lebanese insurance sector, the 75-year-old industry managed to strengthen its standing over the time despite the ongoing political and security hurdles. In this context, the insurance penetration rate reached 3.2% of GDP in 2013 compared to 2.6% of GDP in 2003. However, Lebanon ranked 65th globally and 5th in the MENA region in terms of insurance penetration rate[1] compared to respective previous ranks of 48th and 2nd in 2012. This is mainly explained by the relatively higher progress of several countries of which Portugal, Ukraine and Philippines.
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Lebanese Insurance Sector Robust Performance in 2014 in the Face of Economic Slowdownn