We have a full-time in-house Shariah scholar, Sheikh Zubair Miah, and a Shariah Board chaired by Sheikh Nizam Yaquby. By building Shariah expertise in London, Cobalt is providing common  standards, consistency of Shariah interpretation and a robust platform for collecting premiums and paying claims.

For Cobalt to provide cover, it is the risk exposure itself that must be Shariah-compliant, not the entity requesting cover.

There are a wide and varied assets owned or invested in by those who would like to protect their interests utilising the ethical alternative to conventional insurance that Shariah-compliant insurance provides.

Cobalt will consider risks from many sources so long as the exposure itself is not forbidden.

Those risks for which we cannot consider providing cover are:

• conventional financial services featuring interest, speculation and gambling
• certain food and beverage industries
• tobacco industry and illegal drugs
• gambling
• production of armaments
• sectors within adult entertainment industry

However, not all risk exposures can be ruled totally forbidden. Where a risk exposure includes some aspect of non-Shariah activity, so long as this can be measured and deemed in minority, then it is possible for Cobalt to provide a Shariah-compliant insurance contract.

Examples of this are multi-tenure buildings, buildings such as hotels that have some sales of alcohol or manufacturing processes where a forbidden product is created as a by-product.

Having our in-house Scholar allows us to identify and rule on these exposures as part of our underwriting processes.

• Our Insurers operate via a Takaful Window and deliver products utilising the Hybrid Wakala-Mudarabah Model, with the Wakala contract being used for the provision of underwriting services while the Mudarabah contract is adopted for returns made from investment and underwriting performance activities.
• With regard to underwriting services, the insurer act as the Wakeel (agent) on behalf of participants, in return for a Wakala fee, and provides such functions as providing policy pricing and administration, the accounting of monies, the adjustment and paying of claims, provision of actuarial services, arranging Retakaful and all other necessary functions.
• As well as receiving recompense for its direct services, the insurer is incentivised to maintain a balanced profitable underwriting stance that ensures the highest probability of the participants funds remaining in surplus. This is achieved by the participants agreeing to share with the insurer, on a predetermined basis, the profits made from prudent investment of the funds and the profits made through prudent underwriting and claims management .
• A pre-condition to the entire arrangement is that the Insurer delegates the operations of the Takaful Window to Cobalt Underwriting, and independent General Managing Agent (MGA) to deliver the services that strictly conform with the principles of Shariah, such as segregation of funds, transparency, purity, and avoidance of Shariah prohibited activities and services.