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CCRIF is pleased to announce that its member governments in the Caribbean have all
renewed their parametric insurance coverage for tropical cyclone, excess rainfall,
earthquake and fisheries ahead of the upcoming 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season, ceding
over US$1 billion in risk to CCRIF and increasing overall coverage by 8 per cent. To
support Caribbean governments whose social and economic sectors have been
significantly disrupted by COVID-19, the European Union (EU) under its Global COVID-19
Response, has provided a grant of €10 million (US$11 million) to CCRIF for premium
support or for increasing coverage for its Caribbean members.
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CCRIF SPC limits the financial impact of natural hazard events to
Caribbean and Central American governments by quickly providing
short-term liquidity when a policy is triggered. CCRIF offers parametric
insuce policies for tropical cyclones, earthquakes, excess rainfall and
the fisheries sector.
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CCRIF is a working example of a disaster risk financing instrument and one of a suite
of disaster risk financing instruments available to governments to assist in post-
disaster recovery and to help close the protection gap and ensure that we ‘leave
no one behind’ in the development pathway.
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CCRIF was created as an immediate response to Hurricane Ivan in
2004, which caused billions of dollars of losses across the Caribbean; in
both Grenada and the Cayman Islands, losses were close to 200% of
the national annual GDP.
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Since its inception in 2007, CCRIF has made 41 payouts totalling US$152 million to 13
of its member governments on their tropical cyclone (TC), earthquake (EQ) and/or
excess rainfall (XSR) policies – all within 14 days of the event. The single largest payout
was US$20,388,067 made to the Government of Haiti on its Tropical Cyclone policy
following TC Matthew in 2016.
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Governments have used CCRIF payouts for a variety of purposes, including immediate
recovery and repair activities; providing food, water and shelter to affected persons;
stabilizing public facilities such as water treatment plants; making long-term improvements
to critical infrastructure such as roads, drains and bridges; mitigation activities to enhance
resilience against future natural hazards; and to “keep the wheels of government turning”,
for example by paying salaries of critical government personnel. For example, (62%) of all
payouts have been used partially or wholly for immediate post-event activities; 14% have
been used for long-term infrastructure work; 6% have been used for both risk mitigation
activities and assistance to economic sectors – in this case agriculture; and 3% allocated
the funds to establish a national recovery fund.
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We need to be mindful that CCRIF was not designed to cover all losses
on the ground – but rather to allow governments to reduce their
budget volatility and to guarantee sufficient capital for emergency
relief. CCRIF therefore acts as a vast security blanket for its members
which are vulnerable to the increasing severity and frequency of
climate and weather-related perils.
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The truth is what we do at CCRIF is about supporting governments to help their
populations – communities, businesses and key sectors such as education,
agriculture, and tourism. A rough assessment of the beneficiaries of CCRIF’s
payouts show that over 2.5 million persons in the Caribbean and Central America
have benefitted directly and indirectly from these payouts after a natural
disaster.
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CCRIF currently has 22 members: 19 Caribbean governments – Anguilla, Antigua &
Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands,
Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts & Nevis, Saint
Lucia, Sint Maarten, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks & Caicos
Islands; and 3 Central American governments – Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama
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We are particularly proud of our new fisheries product – COAST – which was launched in
2019 and is currently offered to Saint Lucia and Grenada. COAST is a partnership between
the US Department of State, the World Bank, CCRIF and CRFM. While COAST is a sovereign
insurance product purchased by governments, it acts like a microinsurance product for
individuals in the fisheries sector, protecting the livelihoods of fisherfolk, boat captains
and crew, fish vendors etc. The policy is structured to include a mechanism to transfer
funds from a payout received by the Government to pre-identified beneficiaries in the
fisheries sector.
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In response to demands by our member governments, we also are in the process of
developing new products – for drought, agriculture, flooding (run-off) and public utilities.
Today, insurance within the context of disaster risk financing is both relevant and
necessary given the realities we are now faced with, such as climate change.
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Four years after the establishment of CCRIF, the Climate Risk Adaptation and Insurance in
the Caribbean (CRAIC) project was launched in 2011 to focus on providing similar climate
risk insurance products as CCRIF but for individuals. The microinsurance product known
as the livelihood protection policy, LPP targets the most vulnerable persons in 5 CCRIF
member countries – Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Grenada, Belize, and Trinidad & Tobago
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CCRIF proposes that disaster preparedness must be a function of:
disaster risk mitigation + ecosystem management + disaster risk
financing + cutting-edge social protection strategies (including
consideration of psychological impacts of future disasters on our
populations).
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Under the CCRIF Technical Assistance Programme, Component 1 focuses primarily
on support for tertiary level scholarships and professional development programmes.
Since the CCRIF scholarship programmes were launched in 2010, CCRIF has awarded 77
scholarships to Caribbean nationals totalling US$1.13 million to complete undergraduate
or postgraduate programmes. Since the CCRIF internship programme was launched in
2015, CCRIF has awarded internships to 103 Caribbean nationals with an investment of
US$320,000.
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Under the CCRIF Technical Assistance Programme, Component 2 focuses on regional
knowledge building and is implemented through partnerships with regional organizations
– ACS, CARICAD, CCCCC, CDEMA, CIMH, CRFM, OECS, UNECLAC, and UWI – to support
development and implementation of projects focusing on issues of regional interest in
disaster risk management and climate change adaptation.
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Under the CCRIF Technical Assistance Programme, Component 3 focuses on support for
local disaster risk management projects and programmes implemented by NGOs, CBOs
and academic institutions. Grant values range from US$5,000 toUS$25,000. Since the
launch of this programme in 2015, CCRIF has allocated US$513,365 to these small projects
in disaster risk mitigation and climate change adaptation.
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Since the CCRIF scholarship programmes were launched in 2010, CCRIF has awarded 77 scholarships to
Caribbean nationals totalling US$1.13 million to complete undergraduate or postgraduate programmes
Since the CCRIF internship programme was launched in 2015, CCRIF has awarded internships to 103
Caribbean nationals with an investment of US$320,000
