Two senior reinsurance professionals have left Gallagher Re to join Price Forbes in Dubai, with Tarek Semaan (pictured, left) joining as head of facultative for the MEA region and Anthony Abi Fadel (pictured, right) as director, facultative. Both appointments are effective immediately and report into David Howells, senior executive officer at Price Forbes Dubai, with Fadel reporting directly to Semaan.
Semaan previously served as executive director at Gallagher Re, where he led facultative reinsurance development across the MEA region. Fadel held the role of associate director at the same firm.
The hires come as the UAE insurance and reinsurance sector shows strong momentum. The sector was projected to expand by up to 20% in 2025, according to AM Best, following a 21% rise in insurance revenue in 2024 driven by digital adoption and rising demand across property, casualty and specialty lines. Dubai itself has become a concentration point for international reinsurance activity - the Dubai International Financial Centre reported gross written premiums from insurance-related firms of $3.5 billion in 2024, a 35% jump on the prior year that underlines why the city has emerged as the region's dominant hub. The center now hosts 135 insurance and reinsurance companies.
John Thompson, chief executive of Price Forbes Broking, said the firm viewed Dubai as central to its regional ambitions. "Dubai is an important hub for Price Forbes in serving the MEA region, which continues to see surging demand for insurance solutions and risk transfer expertise," Thompson said.
The two new hires will operate in a market that has shifted in favor of buyers. Gallagher Re reported facultative rate reductions of 35% to 40% across the Middle East at the January 2026 renewals - conditions described as among the steepest seen in over a decade.
The MEA facultative appointments form part of a broader push by Price Forbes across the African continent. The broader Africa reinsurance market generated $6.269 billion in premiums in 2024, according to Africa Re, representing 1.6% of global reinsurance underwriting. Price Forbes also launched a construction practice in South Africa in May 2026, operating as a joint-venture platform between Johannesburg and London for complex infrastructure and energy risks.
Together, the Dubai facultative build-out and the South Africa construction platform signal a deliberate effort by Price Forbes to establish end-to-end MEA capability - combining the reinsurance distribution infrastructure of a major hub market with the on-the-ground specialty expertise that complex African risks increasingly require.
