نوع مقاله : علمی - پژوهشی (بیمه‌های اسلامی)

نویسندگان

• محمدمهدی عسگری ¹
• فرزان خامسیان ²
• سعید صحت ³
• علی اکبر سماواتیان ⁴

¹ استاد، گروه اقتصاد مالی، دانشکده معارف اسلامی و اقتصاد، دانشگاه امام صادق علیه‌السلام، تهران، ایران

² دانش‌آموخته دکتری، 'گروه پژوهشی عمومی بیمه، پژوهشکده بیمه، تهران، ایران

³ دانشیار، گروه مدیریت بازرگانی، دانشکده مدیریت و حسابداری، دانشگاه علامه طباطبائی، تهران، ایران

⁴ دانشجوی دکتری، مدیریت مالی، دانشکده علوم اداری و اقتصاد، دانشگاه اصفهان، اصفهان، ایران

چکیده

1. مقدمه و هدف
تکافل در سال‌های اخیر در کشورهای اسلامی رشد چشمگیری داشته است. در ایران نیز گام‌هایی در جهت اجرای آن برداشته شده، اما پیاده‌سازی تکافل با چالش‌هایی روبه‌رو است. با این حال، تکافل از فواید متعددی برخوردار است. هدف این پژوهش، ارائه راهکارهایی برای حل چالش‌های مالی– اقتصادی پیاده‌سازی تکافل در ایران است.
2. مواد و روش‌ها
برای شناسایی چالش‌ها، ابتدا از روش پرسشنامه باز اکتشافی و تحلیل مضمون استفاده شد. بدین‌منظور، پرسشنامه‌های باز میان خبرگان توزیع شد و نظرات آنان درباره چالش‌های مالی– اقتصادی پیاده‌سازی تکافل در ایران جمع‌آوری شد. سپس پاسخ‌های خبرگان تحلیل مضمون و کدگذاری گردید. در ادامه، با بهره‌گیری از روش دلفی، چالش‌های استخراج‌شده بررسی، طبقه‌بندی و اعتبارسنجی شد و مهم‌ترین چالش‌ها مورد شناسایی قرار گرفت.
     برای ارائه راهکارهای سیاستی، ابتدا از مصاحبه عمیق و تحلیل تم استفاده شد. در مرحله نهایی، برای ارزیابی راهکارهای ارائه‌شده، ابتدا از روش دلفی و سپس از گروه کانونی بهره گرفته شد تا راهکارها اعتبارسنجی شده و راهکار نهایی برای رفع چالش‌ها به‌دست آید.
3. یافته‌های تحقیق
بر اساس یافته‌های پژوهش، مهم‌ترین راهکار از دیدگاه خبرگان در روش دلفی، استفاده از متکافلان و مشارکت‌کنندگان کم‌ریسک و حذف متکافلان پرریسک از طریق طبقه‌بندی ریسک افراد است.
4. بحث و نتیجه‌گیری
با وجود چالش‌های مالی– اقتصادی در مسیر پیاده‌سازی تکافل در ایران، راهکارهایی وجود دارد که قابلیت اجرایی دارند. به‌طور کلی می‌توان از انتشار اوراق تضمین و بهره‌گیری از کمک‌های دولتی و خیریه‌ای برای رفع چالش‌های مربوط به سرمایه پشتیبان استفاده کرد. همچنین پرداخت خسارت‌ها در بازه زمانی طولانی‌تر و طراحی کارآمد محصولات و پرداخت خسارت از لایه‌های بالاتر موجب افزایش توانگری صندوق تکافل می‌شود. بهره‌گیری از سازوکار سهمیه‌بندی در حق بیمه‌ها و خسارت‌ها و اجرای تکافل بر بستر بلاک‌چین نیز می‌تواند در ایجاد شفافیت و کاهش تقلبات بیمه‌ای مؤثر باشد.

کلیدواژه‌ها

• تکافل
• تورم‌
• مدل اجرایی
• نرخ بهره
• ضریب خسارت

موضوعات

• بیمه‌های اسلامی

عنوان مقاله [English]

Providing Solutions to the Financial-Economic Challenges of Implementing Takaful in Iran

نویسندگان [English]

• Mohammad Mahdi Askari ¹
• Farzan Khamesian ²
• Saeed Sehat ³
• Ali Akbar Samavatian ⁴

¹ Professor, Department of Financial Economics, Faculty of Islamic Studies and Economics, Imam Sadiq University, Tehran, Iran

² PhD Student, General Insurance Research Group, Insurance Research Institute, Tehran, Iran

³ Associate Professor, Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management and Accounting, Allameh Tabatabae'i University, Tehran, Iran

⁴ PhD Student, Financial Management, Faculty of Administrative Sciences and Economics, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

چکیده [English]

1. Introduction and Objective
Takaful, as a Sharia-compliant alternative to conventional insurance, has experienced significant growth across Islamic countries over recent decades. Its cooperative structure, ethical foundations, and emphasis on shared responsibility have positioned it as a viable and competitive model even in several non-Muslim markets. The theoretical advantages of Takaful—such as reduced moral hazard, diminished adverse selection, enhanced transparency, and alignment of incentives between participants and operators—suggest that it can contribute meaningfully to improving financial inclusion, strengthening risk-sharing mechanisms, and fostering equitable insurance markets.
      Although Iran has made preliminary efforts toward introducing Takaful, its implementation remains limited and faces substantial financial and economic constraints. Unlike Sunni-majority countries, where jurisprudential positions prohibit certain conventional insurance contracts and therefore create a strong religious motivation to adopt Takaful, Iran’s predominantly Shia population does not recognize a jurisprudential necessity for replacing conventional insurance. As a result, Takaful in Iran cannot rely on religious motivation alone, and must instead be economically competitive, operationally feasible, and financially attractive for both insurers and insureds.
      The Iranian macroeconomic environment compounds these challenges. Persistently high inflation, a significantly negative real interest rate, elevated loss ratios, limited investment opportunities with high liquidity, and structural constraints in the insurance sector differentiate Iran from successful Takaful markets such as Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE. Moreover, the relatively low insurance penetration rate in Iran and the potential small scale of Takaful operations may undermine the law of large numbers, increasing volatility in claims and weakening the financial stability of Takaful funds.
      Given these complexities, this study aims to identify, categorize, and validate the financial–economic challenges of implementing Takaful in Iran and subsequently propose feasible policy solutions tailored to the Iranian context. Unlike previous research, which has largely focused on conceptual or jurisprudential analyses, this study adopts a fully operational and implementation-oriented perspective. It systematically investigates both insurer-side and participant-side incentives, financial sustainability concerns, liquidity risks, loss ratio dynamics, investment constraints, and structural impediments that may impede the establishment of a viable Takaful system in Iran.
2. Methods and Materials
This research is applied in nature and utilizes a comparative and qualitative methodology. To ensure methodological rigor and validity, multiple qualitative research techniques were triangulated, including exploratory open-ended questionnaires, content analysis, Delphi validation, in-depth structured interviews, thematic coding, and focus group evaluation.
Phase 1: Identification of Potential Challenges
In the first stage, exploratory open-ended questionnaires were distributed among experts specializing in economics, insurance and actuarial science, Takaful, Islamic jurisprudence, reinsurance, financial markets, and insurance operations. These experts possessed postgraduate academic backgrounds and an average of at least 15 years of professional experience in the insurance industry. Responses were analyzed using qualitative content analysis and thematic coding, which resulted in the extraction of 30 preliminary financial–economic challenges related to Takaful implementation.
Phase 2: Delphi Validation of Challenges
The extracted challenges were subsequently subjected to a two-round Delphi process involving 12 experts.

Round 1: Experts evaluated each challenge in terms of relevance and importance.
Round 2: Experts rated the importance of each item on a 10-point Likert scale, with an acceptance threshold of ≥3.5.

      As a result, 24 key challenges were retained and classified into seven major components, including insurer motivation, participant motivation, fund liquidity, investment constraints, loss ratio dynamics, actuarial concerns, and transparency-related issues.
Phase 3: Identification of Policy Solutions
To formulate practical solutions to the validated challenges, in-depth structured interviews were conducted with the same expert group. Responses were analyzed using thematic analysis, and solution themes were linked to their corresponding challenge categories. Six major thematic solution categories were identified.
Phase 4: Delphi Validation of Solutions
Another two-round Delphi process was conducted to evaluate the feasibility and importance of each proposed remedy. Using a threshold of ≥6 on a 10-point scale, 18 solutions were selected as the most significant.
Phase 5: Focus Group Validation
Finally, a focus group of five senior insurance practitioners was convened to assess the operational feasibility of the approved solutions. The group endorsed 14 solutions as practically implementable within Iran’s current regulatory, economic, and institutional environment. Inter-evaluator agreement, measured using Cohen’s Kappa, exceeded 0.7 for all pairs of evaluators, confirming high reliability.
3. Research Findings
The findings show that the most critical financial–economic barriers to implementing Takaful in Iran stem from inflation-driven incentive distortions, negative real investment returns, high loss ratios, and liquidity vulnerabilities within Takaful funds.
Key Finding 1: Weak Incentives for Participants and Insurers
High inflation and negative real returns discourage participants from contributing personal capital to Takaful funds. Since returns on high-liquidity investments do not compensate for inflation, the real value of participants’ contributions declines, eroding incentives. Similarly, insurers lose the traditional investment profits of conventional insurance because investment returns in Takaful accrue to participants rather than to the operator. Additionally, religious motivation—an important driver in Sunni-majority countries—plays a minimal role in Iran.
Key Finding 2: Liquidity and Investment Constraints
Because Takaful funds must maintain high liquidity to meet claims obligations, they cannot invest heavily in long-term or illiquid assets that might outperform inflation. Meanwhile, the persistently negative real interest rate in Iran further reduces effective returns. This mismatch between inflation and investment returns creates a liquidity deficit when inflation-driven claim amounts rise.
Key Finding 3: High Loss Ratios and Actuarial Instability
Iran's loss ratios are significantly higher than those of leading Takaful markets. Combined with potentially low participation rates, the applicability of the law of large numbers diminishes, reducing the accuracy of actuarial pricing and increasing volatility in claims relative to contributions.
Key Finding 4: Risk-Pool Composition Challenges
Experts highlighted that without careful risk segmentation, the influx of high-risk participants could destabilize the fund. The Delphi method identified the most important single solution as:
“Adopting low-risk participants during initial years and excluding high-risk participants through detailed risk classification.”
4. Discussion and Conclusion
The study concludes that although Iran faces substantial financial–economic challenges in establishing Takaful, successful implementation is achievable through a combination of regulatory, financial, operational, and investment-related policy measures. The findings stress that importing Takaful models from Malaysia or GCC countries without adaptation to Iran’s distinct macroeconomic conditions would be ineffective. Instead, Iran requires a localized model engineered to withstand high inflation, negative real returns, high loss ratios, and limited incentives.
      Key policy recommendations include:
          * Strengthening Capital and Supporting the Fund
                - Issuing guarantee sukuk (Islamic bonds) to increase operators’ supporting capital.
                - Utilizing government or charitable contributions to compensate for the inability to provide interest-free loans.
                - Limiting or postponing profit distribution in early years to build capital reserves.
          * Enhancing Liquidity and Investment Performance
                - Investing in supply chains and value-added sectors related to insured risks to hedge against inflation-driven claims.
                - Investing in higher-return markets with controlled exposure through delayed claim payment structures.
                - Designing products so that only medium to large claims are covered, reducing operational burdens.
          * Improving Risk Management and Transparency
                - Excluding high-risk entrants and focusing on low-risk participants in early stages.
                - Implementing quota-based mechanisms linking benefits to contribution size.
                - Using blockchain platforms to increase transparency and reduce fraud.
                - Setting explicit claim caps in catastrophic events.
      Overall, the research underscores that Takaful can promote fairness, strengthen risk-sharing practices, and enhance the long-term sustainability of Iran’s insurance sector—provided that its implementation is grounded in realistic economic assessment and supported by adaptive, evidence-based policy intervention. With proper design, Takaful can complement conventional insurance in Iran, expand coverage, and create new cooperative financial instruments aligned with both economic and ethical principles.

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

• Takaful
• Inflation
• Implementation Model
• Interest Rate
• Loss Factor