The health insurance landscape across the GCC continues to
evolve with numerous regulatory changes in recent months impacting
the health insurance market in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates and with further changes anticipated for the market in
Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. It is important for health insurance
participants in the region to stay abreast of the changes, many of
which could significantly impact the market. We set out below a
high level overview of the regulatory developments followed by a
more detailed look at each of the regulatory changes.
Overview of regional developments
In Saudi Arabia, the Council of Cooperative Health Insurance
(CCHI) has issued a 'Unified Policy' which
sets out rules relating to the issue of mandatory health insurance
policies. The Unified Policy is intended to tighten the
procedures to ensure that Saudi nationals working in the private
sector receive the mandated healthcare services and to combat the
use of 'dummy'
