caribbean

Caribbean nations must stop defaulting to adding more debt as the answer after every disaster shock, instead layering the full range of risk transfer and financing tools to enhance liquidity following events and ensure timely, responsive capital flow, according to comments made by the Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and IDB Invest have unveiled a major expansion of disaster risk financial instruments designed to enhance the use of reinsurance and the capital markets for risk transfer across Latin America and the Caribbean.

The World Bank is working with four countries from the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States Commission (OECS), Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, to strengthen their climate resilience and with three risk transfer options being explored, a catastrophe swap, catastrophe bonds, or securing more parametric insurance.

Work is underway to develop a catastrophe bond for the Caribbean region with the support of the World Bank, with four countries currently engaged and as many as four others thought likely to join the effort.

Aura Underwriting, which is part of global specialty insurance and reinsurance MGA Rokstone, has launched a new Caribbean parametric product which provides reinsurance for hurricanes, with qualifying claim payouts in days.

Catastrophe bonds and parametric insurance have both been highlighted by the President of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) in a speech laying out priorities for 2022 and a plan for marshalling financing to support regional economies.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is putting its weight behind calls for the use of catastrophe bonds to help the Caribbean nations to increase their resilience to and ability to recover from disasters, after a hurricane season that has impacted the region heavily.

Following the devastating impacts of hurricanes Irma and Maria in the Caribbean discussion has once again turned to how to secure an increased amount of parametric disaster risk financing for the region, with a regional catastrophe bond issuance rising up the agenda once again.

The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) is broadening its reach with its first venture into personal insurance products and is supporting trials of a parametric personal weather insurance product designed to pay out to Caribbean residents after a natural disaster strikes.

All sixteen member governments of the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) have renewed their hurricane and earthquake parametric insurance coverage for the 2013/2014 policy year which began on the 1st June. All members benefit from a premium discount for the upcoming policy year.