If an insurance office asks you for cash against a policy, it is breaking a decision in force. The Insurance Regulatory Unit has banned any cash financial dealing in insurance operations at all the entities under its supervision, and confined payment and collection to the electronic and banking channels approved by the Central Bank of Kuwait.
What changes in practice
There is no distinction between a motor policy, a life policy and a fire policy: the decision covers all operations. What is meant by cash dealing is notes and coins; card, bank transfer and electronic channels are the only approved route.
This has a direct effect on you rather than only on the company: every payment made through a banking channel leaves a trace you can go back to. Someone who paid cash and lost the receipt has nothing left to prove payment, while a transfer stays on the statement.
The single exception
The decision excepts individual policies issued at border posts covering non-Kuwaiti vehicles entering the country. That is why cash payment survives at the border for anyone entering in a non-Kuwaiti car, and it is not a precedent for anything inside the country.
Why it was issued
The unit says the aim is tighter supervision of the insurance sector, stronger action against financial crime and money laundering, deterring attempts at manipulation or concealing the source of funds, and supporting the work of other supervisory bodies, the Central Bank of Kuwait first among them.
The unit’s head, Mohammed Sulaiman Al-Otaibi, adds that the decision fits the state’s move toward digital transformation, that regulating payment and collection limits the risks of cash dealing, raises the level of oversight of financial flows, strengthens protection of policyholders’ and beneficiaries’ rights, and speeds up transactions.
And whoever breaches it
The unit’s head stressed that all supervised entities are bound, and that breaching the decision gives rise to legal liability. Which puts the responsibility on the licensed firm, not on the buyer.
What to do when buying
Ask to pay by card or transfer, and keep the transaction notice. And if an office insists on cash, that is a signal worth pausing on: an entity breaking a published decision at the first step may break others later. Enquiries and complaints go to the Insurance Regulatory Unit through its online portal.
Source: the Insurance Regulatory Unit, statement issued 29 April 2026 on its official site.
Photo: a closed leather wallet. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
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