The goal of the thesis is to provide a comprehensive picture of the insurance market in the Middle East focusing on the member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Three major aspects of the countries' insurance markets are analyzed in detail, namely trends, players, and regulation. It is found that various factors, like rapid economic growth, the introduction of mandatory insurance, and takaful insurance have led to enormous premium growth in the GCC insurance markets over the last 10 year. Despite the strong growth experienced the GCC insurance markets, especially the life insurance markets remain underdeveloped in international comparison. The analysis at company level shows that premium retention rates of the GCC's largest insurers are in general very low. Due to high market fragmentation the GCC insurers seem to lack critical size to build sufficient underwriting capacity. Nevertheless underwriting profitability and ROE are at high levels. The examination of solvency and investment regulation in the GCC reveals that significant differences exist between the sample countries. While some countries' requirements do not conform to the IAIS' core principles for insurance regulation, other GCC countries have implemented solvency and investment regulation that is in line with contemporary regulatory frameworks, like Solvency II and the Swiss Solvency Test.