Durrant Pate/Contributor

Jamaica is set to receive an additional insurance payout of US$10.3 million or J$1.6 billion through the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF).

With the initial US$16.3 million CCRIF payout, which was announced last week, this additional  US$10.3 million will now swell the total expected payout to US$26.6 million or J$4.1 billion.

CCRIF has decided to up the insurance payout based on its final modelled loss and policy payment report, according to Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke in a post on his X social media page. 

In the post, Clarke wrote, “I have now received the Final Modelled Loss and Policy Payment Report from CCRIF in respect of the GOJ’s Excess Rainfall Policy, which communicates the following: ‘The GOJ (Government of Jamaica) Excess Rainfall Policy with CCRIF has been triggered with a payment amount of approximately US$10.3 million or approximately J$1.6 billion. This amount is additional to the approximately US$16.3 million or approximately J$2.5 billion that was triggered by the GOJ’s tropical cyclone policy with CCRIF’.”

The triggering event report covered excess rainfall from July 4 to July 7.

The CCRIF is the fourth layer in Jamaica’s multi-layered disaster risk financing framework. Payment under the CCRIF Tropical Cyclone Policy was triggered by Hurricane Beryl two weeks earlier, which did extensive damage, particularly along Jamaica’s south coast.

The Government of Jamaica has strategically put in place a multilayered set of financial instruments to pre-finance the emergency response to and recovery costs of natural disasters.

Clarke indicated that while it is neither expected nor designed that all storms will trigger all instruments, the idea is that Jamaica should always be able to access resources from some instruments for every severe weather event.