As Salaam u Alaikum, I am currently working in a Insurance company. This company is not like other insurance companies. This is a Captive insurance company. I mean this is a company which was created by a large oil company and we do insuance only for them. we do not charge them any interest. There is a fixed amount which the parent company pays us. We do insurance only to them and their subsidiaries. Could you please advise whether it is Haram to work here or not. Jaza Kumullah Ahmed

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

The ruling on the mentioned insurance company depends on the kind of insurance that it carries out; if it is a cooperative insurance, it is permissible to work in it, and if it is a commercial insurance based on risk and gambling, then it is forbidden to work in it.

We have clarified how to distinguish between the permissible insurance system and the forbidden commercial insurance in Fatwa 81425. The conclusion in this Fatwa is that one should look at the nature of the contract between the employees or their employer (company) and your company that deducts from them those premiums; so if the role of the insurance company is to take care of those premiums like an agent or a hired person, and cover losses from these collective premiums, and the compensation would be paid wholly or partly from the employees to each other, and the surplus would be for them, and the company has no relation with the premiums except that of a hired agent, then this insurance is cooperative and permissible.

On the other hand, if the insurance company is the company that pays the treatment expenses in return for the installments paid, and it takes the surplus money, then it is a commercial insurance and it is forbidden as it is based on risk and gambling and it is not permissible to work in it if one has the choice not to do so.

Allaah Knows best.