113
In terms of total assets held by an insurance company, Prudential Plc is leading in the UK. As
shown i in 2016, the total assets of Prudential Plc, which was the largest in the UK,
were estimated to be over GBP 470 billion.
Like what is obtainable in most other jurisdictions, the insurance sector in the UK is divided into
the two main categories of insurance – life and non-life insurance. Besides these two sectors,
specialist insurance is also provided by Lloyd’s whose history dates back to the year 1688. For
over 330 years, Lloyd’s has been providing insurance services to businesses in over 200
countries across the world.
For life insurance, the UK insurance sector underwrote EUR 168.9 billion in 2016, while the
whole of Europe had a total life insurance premium of below EUR 700 billion in the same year.
On the other hand, in the same year, the UK underwrote over EUR 82 billion of non-life
insurance. In the whole of Europe, the share of the insurance market in the UK amounted to over
one-fifth of the total market share of the European insurance industry.
FIGURE 28: LEADING INSURANCE COMPANIES OF THE UK RANKED BY TOTAL A SSETS IN 2016
Source: Statista
6.4.2. Legal and Regulatory Framework
In the UK, Islamic finance, generally, has struggled to catch up with centuries-old conventional
financial system over the years. Nevertheless, the UK government had projected London as a
global hub for Islamic finance, through different initiatives to establish a level-playing ground
for alternative finance. For instance, in the year 2014, the UK Trade and Investment (UKTI)
which was later moved to the Department of International Trade affirmatively announced that
the UK is a centre for Islamic finance since many banks in the country (as of then) offered Islamic
finance products and services. Besides, the large professional services providers such as law
4,37
7,01
10,12
10,2
13,09
16,87
21,14
81,75
86
171,57
190,5
440,42
467,85
470,5
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
NFU Mutual
Amlin plc
Direct Line Insurance Group
Abbey Life Assurance Company
AIG Europe Limited
Liverpool Victoria
RSA insurance Group
AEGON UK
Phoenix Group Holdings
Old Mutual
Standard Life
Aviva plc
Legal & General
Prudential Plc.
Total assets (in billion GBP)