The insurance market is booming in the MENA region, but trust is still a major issue for consumers. They want a more personal touch and convenient communications, something that’s a challenge for the highly traditional insurance market. Technology such as Unifonic’s conversational AI solutions for insurers could be key to overcoming this barrier.
The insurance market in the seven Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) effectively doubled during the 2010s. By the end of the decade, it was worth US$11.6 billion in the UAE and $10.3 billion in Saudi Arabia.
That explosion may not continue at the same pace, but continued growth is on the cards, according to a projection based on Alpen Capital and IMF data. That projection says the market across the GCC will be worth $31.1 billion in 2026, covering both life and non-life sectors.
This might seem like unambiguous good news, but not every company will benefit from the boom. Increasing value in the market could drive competition and give consumers more power to shop around. They’ll be looking for reasons to prefer one provider over another.
The EY Global Consumer Insurance Survey found that while cost and benefits are naturally the main reasons for choosing or leaving an insurer, the next biggest reason is communication. 30 percent of respondents said they’d closed a policy due to the relevancy or timeliness of communications.
That contributes to broader attitudes toward insurers. IBM found that worldwide, 64 percent of people said it was important their insurers understood them well.
Ultimately, it boils down to trust. The good news is that the GCC and Middle East region is performing well, with 79 percent saying they have complete trust in their insurer, second only to Latin America. That compares with a worldwide figure of 42 percent who say they don’t fully trust their insurer.
The bad news is that 21 percent of insurance customers in our region lack full trust, making them much more likely to jump ship when their policy is up for renewal. Plug that into the projections for 2026, and that’s potentially $6.3 billion at stake.
Many insurers are stuck in old ways of doing business, communicating only on their terms and expecting customers to come to them. Meanwhile, new entrants and more forward-thinking established players are making themselves available on the platforms customers want to communicate on. Conversational business messaging channels like WhatsApp offer insurers and consumers a convenient way to connect, with solution providers like Unifonic, helping businesses to streamline and automate these conversational channels while remaining compliant with regulations.
How Conversational Messaging Can Help Insurers
Results have shown that insurance providers who are willing to embrace new technology and new ways of communicating with their customers are reaping the rewards. In Oman, for example, the insurance house, Bima has used the WhatsApp Business Platform provided by Unifonic, together with their AI conversational solution, to transform their business and attract a whole new generation of customers.
Bima can now offer services to its customers through conversational channels at every stage of the customer journey, from pre-sales to onboarding and customer support.
The Bima CEO, Said Al Rashdi, says it is hard to imagine how the business would operate without WhatsApp. “Though we have an option on our website for customers to upload their documents and receive policies, it is not as easy as WhatsApp because it is limited by size and type of documents. WhatsApp allows our customers to choose any document and share it with us hassle-free”
Besides the ease of onboarding customers, WhatsApp has helped BIMA significantly reduce customer support costs and improve its quality of service. Almost every process can be carried out over WhatsApp if the customer chooses, with AI chatbots managing first-line responses and easy handover to live agents when required. Mr. Al Rashidi notes, “We can expand into any vertical without worrying too much about how to communicate with customers thanks to Unifonic’s customer engagement platform.”
Unifonic's conversational solution helps insurers provide a seamless service at every stage of the insurance journey, allowing them to use features including:
The insurance market in our region continues to grow, but even high levels of trust and satisfaction aren’t enough to prevent customers from shopping around. Today’s insurance buyer wants clear communications in a convenient format. Unifonic places a high degree of importance on secure and compliant customer engagement, leading the way in integrating custom technology with widely used platforms such as WhatsApp to help insurers better serve, retain, and win over customers.