World Food Programme buys parametric tropical cyclone insurance from CCRIF

CCRIF SPC, the regional parametric risk pool for the Caribbean and Central America, has announced that the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has become the first UN agency and multilateral organisation to join and purchase parametric insurance from it.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has been utilising parametric risk transfer as a way to secure disaster contingent financing to support its operations for nearing two decades.

Our first coverage of a WFP arrangement was a weather-index insurance research initiative back in 2008.

Since then, the WFP has entered into weather-index insurance arrangements, typically in partnership with aid organisations and charities, while also offering parametric risk transfer protection to countries for humanitarian disasters, and becoming the beneficiary of a parametric drought reinsurance arrangement.

As we reported earlier this year, the World Food Programme (WFP) is progressing a plan under its Innovation Accelerator, to become the first to utilise catastrophe bonds for food security financing.

Now, the CCRIF SPC has signed up the WFP as a new member and the UN agency has purchased parametric insurance coverage.

WFP has purchased two parametric tropical cyclone policies to cover the Dominican Republic and Haiti from CCRIF, with the insurance having a combined coverage limit of US $11.6 million.

Perhaps notably, the Dominican Republic is not actually a CCRIF member in its own right, but now there is parametric protection in place that could rapidly disburse funds within the country if a tropical cyclone impact occurred.

Isaac Anthony, CEO of CCRIF SPC commented, “WFP joining CCRIF is a milestone for CCRIF and for the Caribbean region. It shows that parametric insurance is not only a tool for governments, but for every institution that stands on the front line when disaster strikes. We have always sought to innovate, so that more of the region’s people are protected, and this membership does exactly that.”

“Every hurricane season poses a risk to thousands of families in the Dominican Republic. Having this financial protection in place allows us to ensure that assistance reaches those who need it most without lengthy resource mobilization processes, if a WFP policy triggers. This means food, support, and hope for vulnerable communities in the critical days following an extreme weather event, when every hour counts,” added Alex Robayo, WFP Representative and Country Director in the Dominican Republic.

The parametric insurance will help WFP to reach affected communities quickly, predictably, and at scale when disaster strikes.

Haiti has been a member of CCRIF since 2007, since when it has benefitted from over US $80 million in CCRIF payouts on its parametric sovereign policies, for events including Tropical Cyclone, Excess Rainfall, Earthquake, and related endorsements, such as the Local Event Trigger, with the most recent payout being after Hurricane Melissa in 2025.

“With more than half of all Haitians already experiencing acute or higher levels of food insecurity, shocks associated with extreme weather can push already-vulnerable families further into crisis. This insurance provides a predictable and rapidly activated financial tool, which may be triggered by a hurricane or major tropical storm, allowing WFP to help affected populations meet their most urgent needs while protecting their ability to recover,” Lauren Landis, Country Director for WFP in Haiti said.

WFP joining CCRIF takes the risk pool’s membership to 40 and this will further build-out the limits of protection delivered to protect people across the region, which will also result in CCRIF needing more reinsurance over-time.

CCRIF said that WFP’s joining, “Signals a major evolution in how humanitarian agencies can use financial instruments to complement emergency response and demonstrates that parametric insurance is no longer only a sovereign tool, or one for utilities, it is also a humanitarian financing instrument.”