Two facts define Salama in 2026, and an honest review leads with both. First: incorporated in 1979 as the Islamic Arab Insurance Company, it is one of the world's oldest takaful operators, effectively a founding institution of the industry, with 450,000+ customers, the broadest direct personal takaful shelf in the UAE, and religious governance documented to a standard its peers should copy. Second: it spent 2025 out of compliance with CBUAE solvency regulations, with a Solvency Capital Requirement deficit of AED 41.2 million at year-end, and only declared its restructuring complete in April 2026 after a capital reduction and a mandatory convertible sukuk of up to AED 155 million. Neither fact cancels the other.
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The product shelf: widest in the market
Salama sells more personal takaful lines direct than any UAE operator, and unusually for this market, it publishes real parameters on several of them.
- Motor: comprehensive and third-party tiers with personal accident cover for driver and passengers built in rather than sold as an extra, an A-grade garage network, and free off-road assistance, recovery and battery boost. Quote-based pricing.
- Home contents: four published tiers, AED 50,000 (Bronze) to AED 500,000 (Diamond), with tenants' liability, alternative accommodation and fatal injury cover for policyholder and spouse. Contents only; villa owners needing structure cover should look at ADNTC.
- Travel: four zones including a dedicated Hajj and Umrah plan for Saudi-bound pilgrims, the only purpose-built pilgrimage travel takaful we found in the UAE.
- Health: the Dubai-regulated Essential Benefits Plan with fully published co-insurance mechanics (AED 150,000 limit, 20% inpatient co-insurance capped at AED 500 per encounter), scaling to AED 1 million worldwide plans across four TPA networks.
- Life: four plans, headlined by Hemayati Plus, instant term cover with no medical exam and a claim-free maturity value of up to 100% of contributions paid.
- Savings: three plans with printed minimums, AED 100,000 single contribution (Momayaz) or AED 500 and AED 1,000 monthly (Idikhar Plus and Idikhar Plus Secure).
Shariah governance: the strong suit
Salama's Internal Shariah Supervision Committee is named in full: Dr. Salim Ali Al Ali (chairman), Abdul Nasser Ahmed Ibrahim Al Mannaie (vice chairman) and Dr. Ashraf bin Md. Hussain. The annual Shari'a report appears in the DFM-filed integrated report, the takaful model is published plainly on the company's own site (tabarru contributions, segregated fund, Shariah-compliant investment only, Qard Hasan deficit support), and the 2025 integrated report even quantifies the shareholders' Zakat obligation at AED 0.027 per share, a disclosure almost no regional insurer makes. In our Halal Money Index, Salama grades A, the top takaful score in the UAE, on exactly this verifiability.
The financial history you must weigh
Salama's accumulated losses trace back over a decade, to a lossmaking UAE motor era and Thai flood exposure in 2012-13. The 2024-2025 transformation plan brought a capital reduction approved by shareholders on 16 October 2025, a Mandatory Convertible Sukuk of up to AED 155 million, and no dividends for 2023, 2024 or 2025. Year-end 2025 solvency remained short on the SCR measure (AED 41.2 million deficit, improved from AED 58.7 million a year earlier) with the Minimum Capital Requirement met. In April 2026 the company declared the restructuring complete and financial strength restored, and a new chairman, H.E. Humaid Mohammad Obaid Alqutami, was appointed in July 2026.
How much should this history bother you? It depends entirely on duration. A 12-month motor, home, travel or health policy carries little of this risk: claims kept being paid throughout the episode, and CBUAE fund-segregation rules exist precisely for this scenario. A whole-of-life plan or a 20-year savings commitment is a different bet, and a buyer making it should read the latest solvency disclosure first and compare against Abu Dhabi National Takaful, which has never had a solvency episode and carries A- ratings from two agencies.
What we could not verify
No published wakala fee percentage for any pool. No participant surplus distribution history. No online purchase flow for most lines, in a market where Aman issues travel policies in two minutes. These are market-standard gaps, but Salama's otherwise strong disclosure culture makes them more conspicuous.
Verdict
Choose Salama for religious verifiability, product breadth and the practical extras (inbuilt personal accident cover, the pilgrimage plan, printed home tiers), especially on annual policies where its balance-sheet journey barely matters. Interrogate it, or pick the A- rated alternative, for decades-long life and savings promises. Either way, ask the two questions its disclosures do not answer: the wakala fee, and the surplus history. See how Salama stacks up line by line in our motor, health and family takaful comparisons. Facts verified 5 August 2026.
The disclosure nobody else makes
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One line in Salama's reporting deserves more attention than it gets: the company publishes its zakat estimate, AED 0.027 per share for 2025. That is a small number and a large signal. Zakat treatment of participant and shareholder funds is one of the duties the regulation assigns to an operator's Shariah committee, and most operators handle it invisibly. Publishing the figure is the kind of disclosure habit that separates governance-as-practice from governance-as-claim, consistent with Salama's named three-scholar committee under Dr. Salim Ali Al Ali. For buyers building their own zakat discipline, the irony is instructive: your takaful operator may be more transparent about its zakat than you are about yours. Our zakat hub can fix that.
The practical takeaway on Salama overall: the 2025 solvency episode ended with the restructuring announced complete in April 2026, the retail shelf remains the broadest sold direct in the market, and the published savings plan minimums from AED 500 per month keep it the accessible end of family takaful. Verify the plan-level numbers at quote time, and use the family takaful comparison to place any offer in context.