Official figures from Bahrain’s Monetary Authority show an increase in the size and scope of its insurance market.

The BMA said its 19 insurance entities wrote a combined gross premium of BahrainDinar 94.9m ($250m) last year a 5.4% increase on the previous year’s performance.

Motor insurance remains the largest sector, followed by the fire insurance market which has seen a growth of 15.6% year on year. However while premiums were up, so were claims, with the cost of claims in 2005 up BahrainDinar 10m compared to the 2004 figure of BahrainDinar 37.5m.