PM Mottley: Further amendments coming for Catastrophe Fund Act

The Government is proposing to make a further amendment to the Catastrophe Fund Act, Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced Saturday.

During a news conference to update the country on the damage suffered as a result of the passage of Hurricane Elsa, the Prime Minister said it has been recognized that the legislation speaks to “actual damage”.

But she said Barbados is fighting battles globally about vulnerability as opposed to actual damage.

“And we’re fighting these battles because we say that no matter how far you think we’ve gone, we’re vulnerable. Vulnerable to Elsa. Dorian came and passed but we would have been vulnerable to [him] too,” Mottley said.

“We’re vulnerable to floods, we’re vulnerable to other things; ashfall. We’re vulnerable to economic catastrophe.”

The Prime Minister announced that between Hurricane Elsa and recent freak storms, more than 1 100 houses have been affected.

“What we therefore have determined — and last year we amended the Catastrophe Fund Act to deal with economic catastrophe — we are going to amend it to deal with vulnerability as well and to begin to see how we can have a more comprehensive self insurance within the context of that catastrophe fund,” Mottley said.

“One of the consequences of the climate crisis is that there’s increased weather systems and as a result it means that there’s been increased claims. And increased claims invariably means that reinsurers start to up their premium.

The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) was formed in 2007 as the first multi-country risk pool in the world and was the first insurance instrument to successfully develop parametric policies for natural catastrophes. 

CCRIF limits the financial impact of natural hazard events to the Caribbean and Central American governments by quickly providing short-term liquidity when a policy is triggered.