The World Insurance Forum (WIF) is to be held in Dubai next year — the first time in the conference's 14-year history it will have been held outside Bermuda.

WIF project coordinator Suzie Pewter yesterday declined to comment on the change of venue for the biennial event, but said an official announcement would be made soon.

The news came on the WIF website (worldinsuranceforum.com), which states that the Dubai International Financial Centre will be the host location of the next Forum, to be held from March 17-20 next year.

The conference has served as a showcase for Bermuda and its insurance industry with industry leaders from insurance and reinsurance, as well as risk managers, financiers and brokers from all over the world attending. Last year's WIF was held at the Fairmont Southampton Princess, but the statement on the Forum's web-site appears to indicate that the choice of host for the 2008 conference was made with one eye on the future.

Dubai is seen as "the crossroad city" where "East meets West", the statement says, and the conference will focus on business opportunities in the Middle East and the Far East.

"This will be a global summit at the entrance to the world's largest future markets with access to industry leaders and key government authorities from multiple jurisdictions," the statement reads.

The Bermuda Insurance Symposium Company, which has charitable status, owns the rights to produce the WIF.

First held in 1993, the event is sponsored by the industry on a "not-for-profit" basis. It is a forum for those involved in the industry to discuss global issues of critical importance facing the industry.

Insurance opportunities in Muslim countries are already expanding rapidly. According to a report released in April by ratings agency Standard & Poor's, the value of Islamic insurance premiums written in Persian Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait is rising about 16 times faster than the global average for conventional insurance.

Premiums for Islamic insurance, or Takaful, are growing by about 40 percent a year, while the global average for premium growth in 2005 was 2.5 percent, S&P said.

Takaful, based on the Koranic principle of mutual assistance in which members are insurers as well as the insured, is surging in popularity as record oil earnings fuel economic growth in the Gulf. The global market for Takaful may expand fivefold to $14 billion by 2015, according to HSBC Holdings Plc.

The Gulf's Takaful market is now worth $170 million, S&P said. The industry's future success depends its ability to "demonstrate the need for and benefits of insurance".

Many of the world's estimated 1.5 billion Muslims reject conventional insurance because they say it breaks Islamic Shariah law's proscriptions against betting on future events.