Takaful presents unique ALM challenges for insurers in Asia

Moral assurance

Meeting sharia requirements means the role of an insurer in the takaful market is a very different animal from conventional insurance. "We're not really insurers, we're operators. We operate the takaful fund on behalf of the policyholders," says Bert Paterson, chief executive of Sun Life Financial's Indonesian operations in Jakarta.

What Paterson refers to here is that the insurer effectively becomes a takaful administrator - arranging unit-linked vehicles, which are typically composed of