tropical storm Melissa 2025

Reflecting on Hurricane Melissa’s impacts on Jamaica, Hon. Andre Ebanks, MP, Premier & Minister for Financial Services and Commerce, of the Cayman Islands, said that the British Overseas Territory should also look to financial instruments such as catastrophe bonds for future protection.

The World Bank has announced today that following the events of Hurricane Melissa, the Government of Jamaica will receive a full 100% payout of its $150 million IBRD CAR Jamaica 2024 parametric catastrophe bond.

Moody’s RMS Event Response has provided a best estimate for the insurance and reinsurance industry losses from recent hurricane Melissa of $3.5 billion, with a range of between $3 billion and $5 billion anticipated.

Liberty Latin America, one of the largest communications and entertainment service providers in the region, is anticipating around an $81 million payout from its parametric windstorm insurance after hurricane Melissa activated its coverage in the Caribbean.

Catastrophe modelling firm Karen Clark & Company (KCC) is the latest to issue an estimate for the insurance industry loss from recent major hurricane Melissa, pegging the total at US $2.4 billion.

Hurricane Melissa is only estimated to have caused insured losses in a range from US $1 billion to US $2.5 billion in Jamaica, according to catastrophe modeller Cotality, with the total expected pegged at US $1.5 billion, while the economic impacts are far higher demonstrating the protection gap.

Verisk’s Extreme Event Solutions division estimates that insured industry losses to onshore property in Jamaica from Hurricane Melissa will likely range between $2.2 billion and $4.2 billion.

As Jamaica awaits an official determination on a potential $150 million payout from its IBRD CAR Jamaica 2024 parametric catastrophe bond from Hurricane Melissa, ratings agency Fitch has said that it does not expect to see any adverse reaction from the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market as a result of the payout.

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.