What a new insurer in the UAE or Saudi Arabia should hire first

What must be in place before the first policy is written?

The control functions and the people who will carry underwriting authority. Sales and distribution can grow later. A regulator reviewing a new insurer, takaful operator or reinsurer wants to meet the people who will price, reserve, check and sign, and a vacancy in any of those seats slows everything behind it.

Think of the plan in three phases.

A reinsurance manager who can read treaty wording is the hire founders most often leave late. By the time the first large risk arrives, the treaty has to be clear on what is covered.

Which roles can be outsourced, and which cannot?

Anything that carries regulatory accountability stays inside. That means the compliance head, the chief risk officer and anyone holding underwriting authority. Actuarial work is the interesting exception, and the rules differ on each side of the border.

In the UAE, Insurance Authority Board Decision No. 9 of 2017, now in the CBUAE Rulebook, says no actuarial work may be given to anyone who is not licensed and registered. The actuary needs a Fellowship, or an Associateship plus at least two years of experience supervised by a qualified actuary. A resident actuary may serve up to three companies and a non resident up to two, so one actuary can cover several insurers, but the pool of licensed people with spare capacity is small. The detail of actuarial hiring at UAE insurance companies shows how tight it gets.

Saudi Arabia is moving the other way. The Insurance Authority’s draft Insurance Law, released for consultation on 8 July 2025, requires an internal actuarial department and Insurance Authority approval for key function appointments. If you are building in Riyadh, plan for employed actuaries. The wider method, from sign off to IFRS 17, is set out in how to set up an actuarial function.

Who regulates insurance in Saudi Arabia now, SAMA or the Insurance Authority?

The Insurance Authority. It began operating on 23 November 2023 and became the sole insurance regulator when health insurance supervision moved to it on 4 March 2024. If your business plan, board papers or job descriptions still name SAMA as the insurance supervisor, update them before a candidate points it out.

Capital is the next change. According to the Saudi Press Agency on 12 November 2025, the Insurance Authority’s new capital regime pilots in 2026, with full rollout in January 2027. That keeps capital and risk actuaries busy across the market, not only at new entrants.

Competition for people is rising too. A new reinsurer was licensed in Saudi Arabia in November 2025, and any new entrant draws on the same small pool of reinsurance underwriters, actuaries and treaty specialists.

What changed in the UAE rules for insurers?

Federal Decree Law No. 6 of 2025, the new Central Bank law that also governs insurance activities, came into force on 16 September 2025; the CBUAE Rulebook now marks Federal Decree Law No. 48 of 2023 on insurance as repealed by it. Existing firms had a one year transition, which ended on 16 September 2026.

For a new licensee the practical effect is on compliance hiring. Every established insurer has just spent a year mapping itself to the new law, so compliance managers who ran that gap analysis are in demand, and they know it. A new entrant should build policies against the current law from day one and hire someone who has read it closely, not someone who knows the 2023 version well.

How does Emiratisation affect a new insurer’s hiring plan?

Plan national hiring from the start: a new UAE insurer must meet the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation’s targets and competes with banks for the same national graduates. Build national roles into underwriting, claims, compliance and finance with a named manager, a development path and funded qualifications; headcount roles rarely keep good people.

How does a new brand attract senior people?

By answering the questions senior candidates ask before they ask them. Who is backing the company, and for how long? What is the licence status? Which reinsurers are behind the programme? What authority will the role actually carry?

A head of underwriting leaving an established carrier is taking a real risk, and specialist underwriting and claims recruitment turns on exactly those points. The mandate matters more than the logo. So does data: the DFSA’s AI survey, published on 12 November 2025, found 52 per cent of DIFC authorised firms using AI, up from 33 per cent in 2024. That covers all sectors, but a new insurer that can show a clean data build from day one gives analytically minded candidates a reason to join. For the wider UAE market, see specialist recruitment in the UAE.

What to settle before the first search begins

A new insurer’s first search is a problem statement, not a vacancy. Before anyone is approached for a head of actuarial or a chief risk officer, I want to know how many people can legally do the job, what the working model is, what competitors are offering, and how the role will be positioned against an established brand. If the compensation sits well below the market, I will say so in week one. Searching for weeks and then telling a board the budget was wrong wastes the one resource a new licensee cannot buy back, which is time before launch.