The XVII International Conference “Insurance in Central Asia” took place in Almaty on 23–24 September 2026. Over two days, representatives of insurance and reinsurance companies, professional associations, rating agencies, financial institutions and technology businesses discussed how the region’s insurance market is changing under the influence of new risks, regulation, digitalization and shifting customer demand.


The conference was organized by Interconsult INFO LLP and held at the InterContinental Almaty hotel.

The conference’s General Partner was Freedom Finance Insurance, a digital insurance company and one of the leaders in developing advanced technologies in the insurance sector. The company is growing rapidly, focusing on digital products and the use of artificial intelligence. It creates and develops online products that eliminate human intervention and uses space technologies and big data in its work.

Gold Sponsors: Remed Assistance is an international assistance company with more than 30 years of experience. The company is part of Remed Global, a group that brings together expertise in medical and insurance assistance, digital solutions and international services, providing professional support to insurers and their clients worldwide; Dariger Online is an international telemedicine service and a partner to insurance companies. Thanks to Dariger Online, more than 1.5 million clients have access to online medical consultations, including round-the-clock assistance from general practitioners and pediatricians. The service brings together local doctors in the countries where it operates and supports seven languages, helping insurers complement their products with accessible medical care.

Sponsor: Best Service Assistance has been a reliable partner to insurance companies since 2013. The company specializes in medical and travel assistance worldwide. A network of more than 3,000 providers allows it to monitor the quality of care and reduce insurers’ costs.

The conference was organized with the support of the Association of Financiers of Kazakhstan, the All-Russian Union of Insurers, the Russian Association of Motor Insurers, the Belarusian Association of Insurers, the Association of Professional Participants in the Insurance Market of Uzbekistan, and Narxoz Business School. The conference’s media partners were the Kazakhstan insurance portal Allinsurance.kz and XPRIMM.

From Market Growth to a New Insurance Architecture

The program opened with a discussion on the development of insurance markets in Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The participants discussed not only the pace of premium growth but also the quality of that growth, insurers’ financial resilience, the development of compulsory and voluntary insurance, and the industry’s ability to extend meaningful insurance protection to individuals and businesses.

Particular attention was paid to Kazakhstan, where the insurance sector is entering a new stage of development associated with reforms to legislation, market infrastructure and regulatory approaches.

One shared conclusion from the session was that the region’s markets are at different stages of maturity, but their agendas are increasingly converging: financial resilience, digitalization, data quality, broader insurance coverage and the creation of new sources of growth are becoming common priorities.

International Reinsurance Remains Critical for Central Asia

A substantial part of the first day was devoted to reinsurance and new systemic risks. The participants discussed the development of national reinsurance capacity, Central Asian insurers’ access to international capital, and why global reinsurance capacity does not always reach the region’s markets.

The discussions highlighted an important approach for Central Asia: developing domestic insurance and reinsurance capacity does not mean withdrawing from the international market. For large, catastrophic and specialized risks, the best approach remains a model combining local capacity, international capital and international expertise. The program also covered cyber risks, climate threats, agricultural insurance and parametric solutions.

Motor Insurance: Premium Rates Should Increasingly Reflect Actual Risk

A separate session focused on compulsory motor third-party liability insurance and motor insurance.

Using Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus as examples, participants discussed pricing, loss ratios, scoring, fraud prevention and digital claims settlement.


One of the main themes was the role of data. The development of motor insurance is gradually moving the market from averaged pricing toward a more precise assessment of individual risks. At the same time, data generated during claims settlement can be used much more widely. Consistent approaches to estimating repair costs and the accumulation of reliable vehicle histories can become part of underwriting, pricing and fraud prevention systems.

Insurance Moves Beyond the Traditional Policy

The conference’s second day focused on customers, new products, distribution channels and technology.

In the life and health insurance session, participants discussed changing customer demand, voluntary health insurance, corporate health programs, medical inflation and the economics of assistance services.

The central question of the panel discussion was what customers really need today: an insurance policy, financial protection, or a broader health and quality-of-life ecosystem.

The discussion showed that an insurance product is increasingly only one part of a more comprehensive solution. For customers, the outcome matters more than individual elements of an insurance contract: access to medical care, income protection, prompt claims settlement and convenient service.

Who Will Own the Customer Relationship: Insurers, Marketplace or Ecosystem?

The transformation of distribution channels was one of the conference’s most debated topics. Representatives of digital medicine, insurance marketplaces, major insurance companies and technology platforms discussed the development of embedded insurance, ecosystems and new customer services.

The panel discussion centered on the question: “Who owns the customer relationship in digital insurance: the insurer, marketplace or ecosystem?”

One conclusion was that the point of sale itself is gradually becoming less decisive. Competition is shifting toward customer experience: who can make the journey from recognizing a need to receiving a service the simplest, fastest and clearest. For insurers, this creates both opportunities and risks. Ecosystems can reduce customer acquisition costs, make use of data and embed insurance directly into the purchase of another service. But an insurer needs to retain its own value for customers and avoid becoming solely a provider of insurance capacity to another company’s platform.

AI Is No Longer an Experiment but Part of the Operating Model

The conference concluded with an extended session on artificial intelligence, data and insurance market infrastructure. The participants discussed scoring and automation, agentic AI in claims settlement, personal data protection, model transparency, industry data sets and the creation of a unified digital space for reinsurance. Experts from Moody’s Ratings, Kaspersky, Freedom Finance Insurance, GlowByte, Paramatrix and the Belarusian National Reinsurance Organization took part in the session.

The main point of the discussion was that the technological transformation of insurance is no longer limited to introducing individual applications or artificial intelligence models. The next stage is to connect data, processes, information security and digital exchange between companies into a single infrastructure. The idea of an industry data consortium as a tool for improving data quality and the efficiency of Kazakhstan’s insurance market was also discussed.

Key Conference Conclusions

The two days brought several trends into focus that will shape the development of insurance in the region over the coming years:

- further market growth will increasingly be assessed not only by premium volume but also by insurance penetration and the quality of protection;
- national insurance capacity should develop alongside integration into the international reinsurance market;
- more individualized pricing and underwriting depend directly on data quality;
- personal insurance is gradually becoming part of broader financial, medical and service ecosystems;
- technology is moving from automating individual operations to reshaping the insurer’s entire operating model;
- industry-wide digital infrastructure and joint work with data are becoming distinct factors in the insurance sector’s competitiveness.

The conference once again showed that Central Asian insurance markets are increasingly moving from discussions of individual products toward questions of market architecture: capital, data, infrastructure, customer models and engagement with the international insurance and reinsurance community.

Interconsult INFO LLP thanks the partners, sponsors, speakers and participants of the XVII International Conference “Insurance in Central Asia” for their professional dialogue, exchange of experience and contribution to shaping a shared insurance agenda for the region.

Conference materials and articles on individual topics will be published on Allinsurance.kz.