Jordan’s captive domicile status imminent

08/10/2009

Jordan is one step away from implementing regulations to enable the formation of captive insurance companies in the jurisdiction.

Lubna al-Humoud, director of the Legislation & International Organizations Department at the Insurance Commission, said captive regulations would be issued very soon.

Mrs al-Humoud, who was involved in putting together the draft legislation, said: “It’s in the Insurance Commission’s strategy to introduce Jordan as a regional insurance centre and captives are one of the issues that will make Jordan attractive.”

Al-Humoud denied, however, that Jordan intends to compete with other Middle East captive domiciles such as Dubai, Qatar and Bahrain.

“We are complementing rather than competing with existing markets. We have many attractive areas that will help us to be a regional insurance centre for the Middle East and North Africa,” she said.

Jordan’s insurance legislation currently only covers offshore captive insurers, but al-Humoud said the Commission is drafting a new Insurance Act that will help it cater to the onshore captive market.

”We have followed the multi-licence system for non-life insurance captives and life insurance captives and it is in our strategy to cover protected cell companies, but we cannot include cell companies in our regulations before we introduce it in the Companies Act,” she said.

Al-Humoud said the Commission is also hoping to receive applications for management licences once it has issued regulations covering captive management practices.