Parametric insurance news

The World Bank has said that it expects to mobilise a broad package of financial support to aid Jamaica’s recovery from major hurricane Melissa and the development organisation has now stated that a payout of the country’s catastrophe bond is deemed likely.

Aon’s CEO Greg Case said today that he is hopeful the catastrophe bond his firm worked on for Jamaica will help the country in its recovery after hurricane Melissa. Case also discussed the opportunity to provide risk solutions to the massive hyperscaler data centre build-out, highlighting alternative capital as relevant here as well.

Jamaica’s $150 million IBRD CAR Jamaica 2024 parametric catastrophe bond notes were marked down to nearly zero by one pricing sheet team after major hurricane Melissa’s landfall and the calculation agent process has already been activated by the Government of Jamaica, Artemis has learned.

In the weekly Impact Forecasting report from Aon, the company said that major hurricane Melissa’s impacts on Jamaica are likely to drive economic and insured losses into the single-digit billions of dollars, while also confirming parametric structures are likely to respond due to the storms severity.

As the catastrophe bond market awaits an official determination on the potential payout of Jamaica’s $150 million IBRD CAR Jamaica 2024 parametric cat bond after hurricane Melissa, a representative of one of the deal’s structuring agents has said that early signs are that the cat bond structure is “doing what it was designed to do.”

The global insurance and reinsurance industry is facing losses in the billions of dollars after major hurricane Melissa’s devastating landfall and passage across Jamaica, while the country’s $150 million IBRD CAR Jamaica 2024 parametric catastrophe bond is likely to face a full loss, ILS investment manager Twelve Securis has said.

Descartes Underwriting, a specialist underwriter of parametric risk transfer opportunities, has joined the International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation (ICMIF) as a Supporting Member to help tackle climate risk.

With footage coming out of Jamaica after major hurricane Melissa made landfall yesterday showing the damage left in the extreme storms path, rating agency AM Best has said reinsurance capital will take a meaningful share of the losses suffered, while broker BMS Group’s Andrew Siffert said the industry loss could exceed $5 billion.

Major hurricane Melissa has intensified further to sustained winds of 185 mph and its minimum central pressure has now deepened to 892mb, which with the storm’s eye now well into the parametric boxes of Jamaica’s $150 million IBRD CAR Jamaica 2024 catastrophe bond suggests a 100% payout of principal is likely.

As major hurricane Melissa bears down on the Caribbean island nation of Jamaica, the significant intensity of the storm could activate the country’s parametric catastrophe bond and insurance protection triggers which, should they pay out, will provide a valuable source of financial liquidity and recovery funding at a particularly challenging time for the country.