Misbah Kamal
I am a retired insurance and reinsurance broker having worked in the London insurance market since 1978 and retired in 2016. I hold an MSc in Administrative Sciences from the City University Business School, London. I am interested in researching and writing about Iraq's past and present insurance sector. I write mainly in Arabic.
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Papers by Misbah Kamal
The eight articles in the bill mark a departure from the neglect of Iraq's insurance sector by previous Iraqi governments.
The budget bill is now with the Iraqi parliament. It is hoped that the insurance articles in the bill will not be watered down to serve special interests among those who want to continue with insuring on a non-admitted basis as permitted by the Insurance Business Regulation Act 2005.
The adoption of these articles will require amending the 2005 and other insurance-related laws and/or passing an amended 'insurance regulation law' and a new 'insurance law.'
The paper takes issue with this appointment as the incumbent has no technical background in insurance or reinsurance and has no knowledge of the English language, the lingua franca of the international reinsurance industry.
The appointment was made verbally, which runs against the norms of proper management and runs against established Iraqi bureaucratic procedures. This makes the appointment questionable and raises issues of corruption at the Ministry and Iraq Re and the absence of transparency.
The writer argues that knowledge of re/insurance might not be an essential condition for the appointment but the office holder must have competence in management and appropriate academic qualification. This argument is set against past appointments to the office of director general at Iraq Re.
Other issues discussed in the paper include:
The national integration of Iraq’s insurance sector through the vehicle of compulsory reinsurance, set at an agreed minimum percentage.
A brief historical review of corruption in Iraq’s insurance sector and Iraq Re.
This paper is a continuation of a previous paper on Cyber Insurance and its relevance in Iraq.
Is there a relationship between the cost of keeping money and buying insurance?
Tax reduction and demand for insurance.
Insurance as a non-banking financial intermediary.
Monetary and financial markets and insurance company investments.
Organized money markets, banking/insurance awareness, financial/insurance deepening.
These topics were inspired by reading a book by Leheb Atta Abdul-Wahab The Velocity of Money Circulation: Economic Theory and Practical Application.
In the introduction to the book I pointed out that insurance has no presence in Iraqi literature or for that matter in Arabic literature. I singled out one book by the late Dr Saleem Al-Wardi for comment. He wrote a novel titled The Raids of the Winged Bull that had a chapter devoted to insurance as part of the plot.
I have also commented briefly on the presence of insurance in Vanity Fair by William Thackeray, Wrong Box by Robert Louis Stevenson, Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen, and Buddenbooks by Thomas Mann.
The essays by Daniel Skwire cover the following:
“The Literary Lives of Actuaries”
“How Actuarial is a Pound of Flesh”
“Financial Projects of Daniel Defoe”
“Actuarial issues in the Novels of Jane Austen” (this essay was published in the North American Actuarial Journal, 01 January 1997)
“Charles Dickens and the Literary Actuary”
“From the Office of Kafka”
“The Working Lives of Wallace Stevens”
“Insurance in Film Noir”
The book also contains the following:
Wallace Stevens: A Dual Life as Poet and Insurance Executive, by Alison Johnson
Visiting Wallace: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Wallace Stevens, by Dennis Barone and James Finnegan, eds.
I hope that this book, the first of its kind in Arabic, will encourage scholars to research the theme of insurance in literature.
The paper addresses the following six themes:
1. the role of insurance in the process of simple and expanded reproduction.
2. the 1964 nationalisation laws.
3. public and economic policies and corruption in the insurance sector.
4. the need for a modern comprehensive vision for insurance activities in Iraq.
5. Paul Bremer and his harmful role in Iraq's economy including insurance and reinsurance.
6. the fate of insurance culture in-between the Iraqi people and sectarian decision-making.
It is hoped that this discussion will give rise to more discussion on the problems of Iraq's insurance sector.
For the first time we learn from Dr Rajab that the origins of Iraq Re started with a question by the Minister of the Economy (mid 1959) about some companies calling themselves reinsurance companies, and how, after submitting a study on the subject, he was commissioned by the Minister to establish a reinsurance company, which became known as the Iraq Reinsurance Company.
It is hoped that the publication of this letter will encourage further research on the history of Iraq Reinsurance Company.
The agency acted on behalf of the Alliance Insurance Company (a British company established in 1824 and merged in 1959 with Sun Insurance to create Sun Alliance Insurance Ltd, now part of RSA Insurance Group)
The paper is a fresh attempt, following a previous one, at researching the contribution of Iraqi Hews to Iraq's nascent insurance industry.
The writer is convinced that researching Jewish contribution is simultaneously researching Iraq's insurance history.
The eight articles in the bill mark a departure from the neglect of Iraq's insurance sector by previous Iraqi governments.
The budget bill is now with the Iraqi parliament. It is hoped that the insurance articles in the bill will not be watered down to serve special interests among those who want to continue with insuring on a non-admitted basis as permitted by the Insurance Business Regulation Act 2005.
The adoption of these articles will require amending the 2005 and other insurance-related laws and/or passing an amended 'insurance regulation law' and a new 'insurance law.'
The paper takes issue with this appointment as the incumbent has no technical background in insurance or reinsurance and has no knowledge of the English language, the lingua franca of the international reinsurance industry.
The appointment was made verbally, which runs against the norms of proper management and runs against established Iraqi bureaucratic procedures. This makes the appointment questionable and raises issues of corruption at the Ministry and Iraq Re and the absence of transparency.
The writer argues that knowledge of re/insurance might not be an essential condition for the appointment but the office holder must have competence in management and appropriate academic qualification. This argument is set against past appointments to the office of director general at Iraq Re.
Other issues discussed in the paper include:
The national integration of Iraq’s insurance sector through the vehicle of compulsory reinsurance, set at an agreed minimum percentage.
A brief historical review of corruption in Iraq’s insurance sector and Iraq Re.
This paper is a continuation of a previous paper on Cyber Insurance and its relevance in Iraq.
Is there a relationship between the cost of keeping money and buying insurance?
Tax reduction and demand for insurance.
Insurance as a non-banking financial intermediary.
Monetary and financial markets and insurance company investments.
Organized money markets, banking/insurance awareness, financial/insurance deepening.
These topics were inspired by reading a book by Leheb Atta Abdul-Wahab The Velocity of Money Circulation: Economic Theory and Practical Application.
In the introduction to the book I pointed out that insurance has no presence in Iraqi literature or for that matter in Arabic literature. I singled out one book by the late Dr Saleem Al-Wardi for comment. He wrote a novel titled The Raids of the Winged Bull that had a chapter devoted to insurance as part of the plot.
I have also commented briefly on the presence of insurance in Vanity Fair by William Thackeray, Wrong Box by Robert Louis Stevenson, Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen, and Buddenbooks by Thomas Mann.
The essays by Daniel Skwire cover the following:
“The Literary Lives of Actuaries”
“How Actuarial is a Pound of Flesh”
“Financial Projects of Daniel Defoe”
“Actuarial issues in the Novels of Jane Austen” (this essay was published in the North American Actuarial Journal, 01 January 1997)
“Charles Dickens and the Literary Actuary”
“From the Office of Kafka”
“The Working Lives of Wallace Stevens”
“Insurance in Film Noir”
The book also contains the following:
Wallace Stevens: A Dual Life as Poet and Insurance Executive, by Alison Johnson
Visiting Wallace: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Wallace Stevens, by Dennis Barone and James Finnegan, eds.
I hope that this book, the first of its kind in Arabic, will encourage scholars to research the theme of insurance in literature.
The paper addresses the following six themes:
1. the role of insurance in the process of simple and expanded reproduction.
2. the 1964 nationalisation laws.
3. public and economic policies and corruption in the insurance sector.
4. the need for a modern comprehensive vision for insurance activities in Iraq.
5. Paul Bremer and his harmful role in Iraq's economy including insurance and reinsurance.
6. the fate of insurance culture in-between the Iraqi people and sectarian decision-making.
It is hoped that this discussion will give rise to more discussion on the problems of Iraq's insurance sector.
For the first time we learn from Dr Rajab that the origins of Iraq Re started with a question by the Minister of the Economy (mid 1959) about some companies calling themselves reinsurance companies, and how, after submitting a study on the subject, he was commissioned by the Minister to establish a reinsurance company, which became known as the Iraq Reinsurance Company.
It is hoped that the publication of this letter will encourage further research on the history of Iraq Reinsurance Company.
The agency acted on behalf of the Alliance Insurance Company (a British company established in 1824 and merged in 1959 with Sun Insurance to create Sun Alliance Insurance Ltd, now part of RSA Insurance Group)
The paper is a fresh attempt, following a previous one, at researching the contribution of Iraqi Hews to Iraq's nascent insurance industry.
The writer is convinced that researching Jewish contribution is simultaneously researching Iraq's insurance history.
The book includes three essays written by women: ‘Women in the National Insurance Co (NIC)’; ‘A Preliminary Study of the Role of Women in NIC’; and an autobiographical essay ‘Working for NIC’.
The editor contributed a paper on researching the work of women in Iraq’s insurance sector in the 1950s, the formative years of the insurance industry in Iraq. Sections of this papers gives prominence to the pioneering work of Miss Saud Barnouti at NIC.
The book also includes two long dialogues: one with the first woman in Iraq to be a appointed first as a board member of NIC and then as NIC’s chair and director general. There is also a long dialogue with the editor on the question of women in insurance.
Other sections of the book include fairly long obituaries of two outstanding women who worked for NIC: Huda Al-Safwani (Aviation and Hull Department); Suhair Hussain Jameel (Legal Department).
The editor’s introductory essay raises a few searching questions on the relative absence of women insurance writers.
The book is a tribute to the work of women in Iraq’s insurance sector. It is the hope of the editor that it will encourage others to research this much neglected topic in Iraq’s insurance history.
Some of the themes tackled in the book include: the role of insurance companies in consolidating the state's revenues, re-capitalisation and modernisation of Iraq's insurance sector, general elections and insurance, absence of insurance in government programmes/policies, re-structuring Iraq's state-owned insurance companies.
Other chapters of the book critique the poor treatment of insurance in financial conferences, the press and insurance, the World Bank's assessment and proposed reform of Iraq's insurance sector, etc.
other chapters of the book examine the extent of the independence of the Insurance Diwan, and prohibition of non-admitted insurance.
It includes an introduction, obituaries, letters and short essays celebrating his life and work, and two studies of his work as the head of a state-owned insurance company, one by the late Dr Saleem Al-Wardi and the other by Misbah Kamal, editor of the book.
The ICP position on insurance is deconstructed to flesh out the basic elements for a policy on the current and future direction of Iraq's insurance sector.
The study also highlights the general absence of insurance in the public domain as a mechanism for protection against the financial consequences of everyday risks at home and work faced by individuals and corporations as the consequences of natural and man-made disasters. It points out that there is no proper discourse on insurance as a source of investment funds.
The ICP position on insurance is deconstructed to flesh out the basic elements for a policy on the current and future direction of Iraq's insurance sector.
The study also highlights the general absence of insurance as a vehicle for protection against the consequences of natural and man-made disasters and risks, and as a vehicle for investment.