Caribbean islands renew with catastrophe risk facility and get increased cover

Back in April I posted about the feeling among Caribbean disaster management and meteorology officials that the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility was not providing enough cover for protection against smaller storms (original post here). It seems that some of those fears have been allayed as reports state that the 16 original government members have all renewed their policies for the coming year.

The feeling was that the parametric nature of the cat funds triggers were not sufficient to provide cover to the islands from smaller hurricanes where the damage was largely from rainfall and flooding (Hurricane Dean being a prime example last year).

Now the fund has been renewed with reduced premiums (some 10% lower) and greater coverage provided by a 15 year event attachment point instead of the previous 20 year event point. This will see islands benefit from being able to claim for weaker hurricanes. Payouts will also be speedier, with legitimate claims being able to be settled in 14 days.

Countries will have access to a $100m per peril coverage limit up from $50m last year.

Reactions in the Caribbean seem very positive (Jamaica Gleaner coverage here).

There has been no further news on the alternative I wrote about previously.