The Arab Insurance Institute was created under the umbrella of the GAIF (General Arab Insurance Federation) and owned by over 40 shareholders from insurance-related organizations from across the Arab world. The Arab Insurance Institute is an independent organization providing training and education to insurance-related organizations and individuals across the Arab world.
The Arab Insurance Institute training programs, run by their highly-experienced trainers, insurance professionals and subject specialists, give delegates an excellent understanding of insurance, reinsurance, finance and management, improving theoretical knowledge as well as practical skills.
Khaled Abu Nahel is a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute, holds a Masters degree in Insurance and Risk Management, is a Member of the Institute of Risk Management and a Member of the Chartered Management Institute. Khaled Abu Nahel’s career as a senior executive in both insurance companies and brokers brings a powerful, practical approach to his international teaching and training assignments in Insurance, Reinsurance and Risk Management.
Abu Nahel aspires to extend a thorough understanding of the basic principles and practices of insurance and its key disciplines in order to improve the performance of the industry.
As an experienced insurance practitioner and business leader, Abu Nahel knows that in order to improve performance at work training is needed to develop practical skills as well as theoretical knowledge. To achieve this, the Institute brings together academic research, practical advice and guidance, professional development and rigorous standards to enhance technical competence and business capabilities. This is good for business, for society at large, and good for people's working lives.
BL: What is your insight on the newly established Arab Insurance Institute?
Khaled Abu Nahel: The institute's courses and programs are designed to support people from the insurance industry (both general and life insurance), insurance and reinsurance companies, insurance brokers, loss adjusters, and insurance departments in other business sectors. The range of courses is constantly expanding in accordance with the demand.
We, at the Arab Insurance Institute, started modestly to develop our courses which are published on the Institute's website, design our standards, and hire competent, professional trainers. We are aiming to obtain contracts from individual insurance companies that need specific training requirements. In coordination with the General Insurance Federation (GAIF), we organized specialist courses for various markets: for the Egyptian market, through a close coordination with the GAIF and the Egyptian Insurance Federation. Additionally, we held a reinsurance specialist advanced course that was attended by 60 people and I was personally involved in this course for three days. This course met a notable success especially that the Arab Insurance Institute marked its presence in the Egyptian market, and the Institute's name became renowned all over Egypt and the surrounding countries. Another major initiative of the Arab Insurance Institute was its coordination with the Association des Compagnies d'Assurances au Liban (ACAL) together with the GAIF.
In April 2016 we successfully conducted reinsurance training for 21 participants in Lebanon in collaboration with ACAL at their premises. I see that holding a training workshop in Lebanon in coordination with ACAL is a very remarkable step, and hopefully in the future we will be able to hold more training courses in Lebanon. We would like to attract the Lebanese professionals to be part of our trainers’ panel in Lebanon and abroad.
BL: What is the impact of The Arab Insurance Institute on the insurance and reinsurance industry and what is the feedback on the recent training sessions?
Khaled Abu Nahel: In my view, the name "Arab Insurance Institute" has acquired a good reputation, a good name and a good brand. Its name is well-known in many countries, even in North Africa, which is part of our vision and our future expansion plans. We are progressing very well, focusing on quality while we commit resources to build both a comprehensive library of training and reference materials and a panel of professional trainers. I consider this a big achievement and the foundation for the fully fledged expansion plans to strive for the set vision and objectives of A.I.I. In the second promotional phase, we need to spend more time on the necessary marketing plans by visiting companies and convincing those companies to cater to their training needs. My concern is to enable all insurance and reinsurance companies to face the present and future challenges of our dynamic and evolving industry. Consequently, we need to invest in our staff and their professional development through hiring training consultants and organizing special training courses and The Arab Insurance Institute is the ideal center for such a task. Professional training will boost the knowledge and experience of insurers, reinsurers and brokers and make them confident enough to deal with underwriting, pricing, claims handling and management, and arrangement of various risks in addition to strengthening other managerial skills that support the technical skills. The Arab Insurance Institute also provides specialist courses in management, customer service, communication , negotiation, time management, etc. linked to the insurance technical courses.
BL: What is the fee for the institute's training?
Khaled Abu Nahel: When setting the fees for each course we take into consideration all aspects involved in the preparation, support required, trainers effort, material, etc. and they are set modestly to encourage the insurance sector to raise the knowledge and performance of their staff and management team.
Of course, The Arab Insurance Institute is like any other service provider with its own expenses and fixed and variable costs, and accordingly we need to cover these costs and build a margin so that the Institute can grow and expand its pace into the future. At the same time we are concerned about benchmarking against Insurance companies’ expectations and other providers by giving high quality courses, and we are willing to be available in various markets. In fact, the Arab insurance industry is not one market. It is composed of several markets with different pricing and several requirements. Therefore, pricing cannot be standardized. That is my view about pricing. However, for the in-house training courses, pricing is linked to the expected number of participants. Once we know the number of participants then we can price it more efficiently and effectively. For the open courses, pricing is based on an assumption of a certain number of registrations. Sometimes these courses do not attract an expected number, hence some courses may run at a loss and we are taking this into consideration when assessing our overall strategies and plans. It is more attractive for companies to have their own in-house training program for some of their staff , thereby supporting their own long term Human Resources Development Plan which aims to acquire benefits that exceed expenditure on training. That is why I consider what we spend on training is part of the investment in our Human Capital.
BL: What are the plans for North Africa?
Khaled Abu Nahel: Regarding Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, we are waiting for further development especially as we need to tackle the language, and the experience of these markets. These markets are categorized by different practices based on the French conventions influenced by French Law and Language . The French language is the acceptable business language in those countries. So, we need to develop our know-how and maybe hire people in these countries to be able to be present in North Africa. In fact, we are in discussions with some insurance associations and institutes there to collaborate and do some work relevant to these markets.
BL: Khaled, what are the courses that the Institute provides? What are the main topics?
Khaled Abu Nahel: When we designed our open courses, we acknowledged the need of most of the markets, based on the portfolio mix and size, and the expected number of people attending these courses. For specialty courses, we have courses in different levels, from foundation to intermediate to advanced for any specific class of business. Let us say fire, Business Interruption insurance (also known as loss of profit insurance), reinsurance or motor insurance, underwriting, claims handling. We provide an overview of handling principles and practices of insurance, plus an overview on underwriting and claims management, etc. This is also presented in a course for new entrants or non-technical people who are working with insurance companies who need to understand the company they work for and this will help them in their career. We have courses on business planning, risk management and financial analysis. We have some courses on operational risk management, risk management loss prevention, risk control and risk surveying. It is very easy to find whatever you are looking for on our website www.arabinsuranceinstitute.com
BL: Are you ready to support the gas and oil industry through assisting the insurance sector to cater to the needs of the impending oil and gas sector and other industries?
Khaled Abu Nahel: Definitely, my answer is yes. The Arab Insurance Institute is ready to meet the needs of the market and to prepare the insurance and financial services sector for the upcoming development. There are two aspects I want to address regarding the oil and gas. One is the technical aspect; different insurance covers like property, business interruption, liability etc. If you build the technical background, you will achieve capability to acquire the technical insurance needs related to the oil and gas. The second aspect is knowledge of the industry itself, as it relates to different parts of the oil and gas industry whether the processes, the exploration, refining, manufacturing, (onshore or offshore) distribution, etc. This will involve designing courses to cater for the two aspects and therefore specialist trainers will be involved on our Trainers Panel. The second aspect will require experience and involvement in handling oil and gas insurance portfolio. And this needs to be supplemented by people who have the expertise in underwriting. So, when the Primary pricing is done, the market can decide what it can take and how much reinsurance it requires , hence the involvement of specialist reinsurance brokers with relevant expertise in the international market.
