[3] Despite these, there is no evidence to suggest commercial, institutional insurance activity was known in Iraq until at least after the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of October 1922.
By the time of the nationalisation of the industry in 1964, there were still just 15 branches and agencies of regional (Arab) and foreign insurance companies across Iraq.
These included the following:[10] In 1966, two years after the nationalisation was completed, Clement Shammas was appointed by Iraq's then Prime Minister Abdul Rahman al-Bazzaz as the head of the newly formed Iraqi Insurance Organisation (abolished in 1988).
49 (1960) was itself repealed handing the Iraqi Ministry of Finance the authority to oversee all insurance and reinsurance activities in Iraq.
At this time, private insurance companies were also allowed to form and the first such company, Dar Al-Salam Insurance Co, was established in 2000 [11] The current legislation is the Insurance Business Regulation Law (2005) drafted under the guidance of USAID/BearingPoint Inc.[12] It is difficult to get an accurate estimate of the size of the current industry in Iraq, but using gross written premiums as a guide, the 2013 figure was in the region of $300–480million (with $240–400 million from state-owned companies and $60–80 million from privately owned ones).