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In a charge to local insurance industry leaders, GraceKennedy Financial Group (GKFG) CEO Steven Whittingham advocated that pooled capital held in insurance and pension funds serve as the catalyst for Jamaica’s economic recovery and transformation.

Addressing attendees at the Insurance Association of Jamaica’s (IAJ) 20th Anniversary Business Conference, held April 20-21, 2026, at Jamaica Pegasus in St Andrew, the GKFG CEO noted that insurance and pension funds are Jamaica’s most underused tools for economic transformation. On this note, he called for urgent action on five fronts.

“Jamaica’s financial sector must urgently reimagine itself — moving beyond its traditional role of cushioning losses and into active nation-building, ” shared Whittingham.

He further asserted that insurance, pensions, and capital markets are not three separate industries but rather a single interconnected ecosystem that, if properly activated, could be the mechanism through which Jamaica graduates from a developing to a developed economy.

“Insurance reduces risk, generating investable funds. Pensions mobilise long-term savings, creating patient capital. Capital markets channel those assets into productive domestic investment,” he told delegates.

“When those investments succeed, they generate more jobs, more income, more savings, more insurable assets, and more retirement contributions. A self-reinforcing ecosystem,” Whittingham continued.

Whittingham, who also serves as the chairman of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE), pointed to three compounding pressures that make the conversation urgent: chronic low GDP growth and underinvestment in infrastructure; Jamaica’s physical vulnerability as a small island squarely in the Atlantic hurricane corridor; and an accelerating demographic shift — a falling birth rate now below replacement level of 2.1, combined with an ageing population — that is straining the labour force and threatening pension solvency.

Drawing on the example of SpaceX — backed by pension funds, insurers, and capital markets from its earliest days, and now approaching what Whittingham described as the largest IPO in history at a valuation of up to US$2 trillion — he argued that patient capital, such as insurance, channelled through this financial ecosystem regularly enables transformative companies and industries globally.

Jamaica’s economy, he conceded, is unlikely to produce its own SpaceX, but he insisted the domestic capital base is sufficient to finance large-scale investment wins that can succeed at home and expand abroad.

“Jamaicans understand the value of pooling resources,” he said, highlighting the island’s ‘pardner’ tradition and the proverb ‘one-one cocoa full basket’.

“Individually, that instinct is already part of who we are. Collectively, if we get it right at a national scale, we will have amassed investable capital — that we did not borrow — to fund investments that drive exponential growth.”

Five key areas of focus

Whittingham outlined five concrete areas requiring action.

He called for expanding pension coverage to a wider base of Jamaicans, noting that participation rates remain critically low, despite pension assets growing from 15.8 per cent of GDP two decades ago to 34 per cent today.

Moreover, the GKFG CEO urged increasing insurance penetration, adding that premiums as a share of GDP stand at 3.8 per cent — well below the OECD average of 6.2 per cent — while too many households and businesses remain uninsured. He pressed for deepening Jamaica’s capital markets by creating more investable opportunities, greater liquidity, and more efficient channels for deploying insurance and pension assets.

Whittingham also challenged the industry to innovate with simpler, more accessible products that meet Jamaicans where they are. In this regard, he called for policy, regulation, and industry to align, warning that as fund flows grow and asset complexity increases, robust oversight will be essential to maintain the public confidence that underpins any market.

Whittingham closed with a pointed challenge: “The work to be done by the people in this room — insurers, pension managers, regulators, investment professionals — is not just technical work. It is nation-building work. It is your actions that will help determine whether Jamaica remains trapped in caution or moves confidently into growth.”

“The story of Jamaica will not be about resilience through scarcity,” he said. “It will be about productive expansion and sustained prosperity.”