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The Sonali Life Insurance Company Limited (SLICL) is going to convert from a conventional insurer to a full-fledged Islamic life insurance company.
The insurance company submitted an application to the Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority (IDRA) seeking the latter’s approval to change its service method, said IDRA sources.
Seeking anonymity, an IDRA official told The Business Post that the company has fulfilled all the criteria required to transform from a conventional insurance company to a full-fledged Islamic life insurer.
He said in its next meeting, the IDRA will discuss the issue and make a decision on Islamisation of the insurance company.
The SLICL started its journey as a public limited company on July 7, 2013, to provide all kinds of life insurance services. Currently, the company has TK 47.50 crore paid-up capital.
Recently, the company crossed the Tk 500 crore premium collection mark in the current year. In the previous year, the company collected TK 319.66 crore premiums.
In 2021, the SLICL paid 100 per cent of life insurance claims, becoming one of the top performers among the country’s 33 life insurance companies. The company’s life funds and assets respectively were Tk 294.71 crore and TK 439.58 crore in 2021, according to IDRA data.
Talking about the reason behind transforming into an Islamic insurance company, CEO of SLICL Mir Rashed Bin Aman told The Business Post, “The country’s majority people are Muslim. Many of our clients want to run their policy as per Islamic shariah. Considering the demand of the clients, we want to transform Sonali Life into a shariah-based company.”
“We have been working to run the company following shariah policies for many years. In 2015, we got the approval of the company’s board of directors to operate the organisation based on Islamic shariah and consequently formed a shariah council in the same year,” he said.
“All activities of the company have been running based on shariah since 2015. Now, we are seeking the approval of the IDRA, after making all necessary changes or reforms in our company needed to turn it into a full-fledged Islamic life insurance company,” he added.
“Hopefully, we will get the regulatory body’s approval as Islamic life insurance company very soon,” said Rashed Bin Aman. Industry insiders said Islamic insurance sector of the country witnessed tremendous growth in the last few years due to people’s increasing interest in shariah-based policies.
Meanwhile, Islamic banking also flourished during that time. Currently, around 28 per cent of deposits and loans in the banking sector are under Islamic banks. Like Islamic banking, Islamic insurance will also expand further in the near future, they said.
According to IDRA data, the premium earnings of the country’s 11 Islamic life and general insurance companies were Tk 1,070 crore in 2017 which increased by 50.93 per cent to Tk 1,615 crore at the end of 2021. In the meantime, the number of companies also increased to 14.
