Abstract:
Despite being among the pioneers of the Takaful industry, the UAE’s share of the Takaful (Islamic insurance) business is less than 10 percent. Against this background, this study was conducted with the main objective of developing a conceptual model that combines the potential factors contributing towards robust and sustainable growth of the Takaful business in the second largest economy of the Arab world. The study utilizes the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to examine the impact of brand equity and customer perceptions on the purchase intentions of Health Takaful customers through the moderating role of age, income, education, and religion. A quantitative study was adopted, using random sampling technique for data collection from 400 respondents through a self-administered questionnaire. The major findings of the study confirmed that brand equity and customer perceptions have a significant positive influence on the purchase intentions of Health Takaful customers in the UAE. Analyses of the moderating variables showed that while age, income and education are significant moderators, religion is a non-significant moderator for the above relationships. An interesting finding of the study is the non-significant moderating role of religion, indicating that every resident of the UAE can be a potential buyer of Takaful, regardless of his religion. The study is, to the best of the researcher’s knowledge, a pioneer attempt to propose a conceptual model to understand the purchase intentions of Takaful customers in a dynamic Arab country like the UAE. This model can be utilized and explored further by academia, industry practitioners and government bodies through its application in various business industries across the globe.
