Jamaica promotes regional Caribbean catastrophe bond idea to other nations

The government of Jamaica is keen to share its experience as a catastrophe bond sponsor and wants to encourage other nations in the region to consider joining it in sponsoring a Caribbean catastrophe bond, to cover multiple countries, a report states.

According to a story from Barbados Today, Jamaica’s Minister of Finance Nigel Clarke has discussed the idea during a panel discussion as part of the World Bank Group and IMF Spring Meetings this week.

Artemis reported recently on the fact that Caribbean nations have been discussing this possibility with the World Bank, with a multi-country catastrophe bond for the region seen as an efficient way to access disaster risk financing and insurance capacity from the capital markets.

Jamaica, having secured its own and first cat bond in 2021, is speaking with other Caribbean countries about the potential benefits of this opportunity.

According to Barbados Today, Jamaica’s Minister of Finance Clarke said, “One of the things we are trying to work on is to get other countries in our region interested in a catastrophe bond.

“So instead of Jamaica doing it on its own, and we did this for the demonstration effect, we have been having dialogue, with the World Bank’s assistance, with other countries in the region.”

We had also reported that a multi-country Caribbean cat bond deal was possible back in 2022.

A regional catastrophe bond for the Caribbean could provide an opportunity for its nations to benefit from economies of scale, as well as enabling them to diversify their own risk into a pool, somewhat.

A catastrophe bond for the Caribbean could provide an additional and complimentary source of insurance and reinsurance protection to the regional catastrophe risk pool the CCRIF, while diversifying sources of risk capital to include the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market and institutional investors.

Jamaica’s Finance Minister explained how this multi-country approach could benefit the Caribbean region.

“In this era where climate change has gathered such attention and focus, if we were to go to the market with a single catastrophe bond that covers the region the pricing would be better and the coverage would be higher, and that would be an innovation in that particular space,” Barbados Today reported that Clarke said.

Watch our recent video interview with Jorge Familiar, Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank.