Hon. Dr. Rufus Washington Ewing, Premier and Minister of Tourism and Hon. Charles Washington Misick, Minister of Finance met with the CEO and Board of the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) on June 19, 2013 in Providenciales to discuss the Facility and how it helps The Turks and Caicos Islands and other countries in the region to enhance their disaster risk management programmes.
CCRIF provides hurricane earthquake insurance to Caribbean governments. As one of CCRIF’s 16 member countries, The Turks and Caicos Islands received one of the first payouts from the Facility; in 2008, CCRIF made a payout of over $6.3 million after the passage of Hurricane Ike.
CCRIF conducts its quarterly board meetings in different member countries, which provides additional opportunities to interact with key stakeholders in the finance, disaster management and meteorology communities on a periodic basis.
CCRIF is a not-for-profit risk pooling facility, owned, operated and registered in the Caribbean for Caribbean governments. It is designed to limit the financial impact of catastrophic hurricanes and earthquakes to Caribbean governments by quickly providing short-term liquidity when a policy is triggered. It is the world’s first regional fund utilising parametric insurance, giving Caribbean governments the unique opportunity to purchase earthquake and hurricane catastrophe coverage with lowest-possible pricing. CCRIF represents a paradigm shift in the way governments treat risk, with Caribbean governments leading the way in pre-disaster planning.
CCRIF was developed through funding from the Japanese Government, and was capitalised through contributions to a multi-donor Trust Fund by the Government of Canada, the European Union, the World Bank, the governments of the UK and France, the Caribbean Development Bank and the governments of Ireland and Bermuda, as well as through membership fees paid by participating governments.
Since the inception of CCRIF in 2007, the Facility has made eight pay-outs totalling US$32,179,470 to seven member governments. All pay-outs were transferred to the respective governments within 14 days after each event.
