Caribbean islands renew catastrophe insurance pool

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Caribbean governments have renewed policies in an insurance pool that triggers payouts of emergency cash to regional islands after devastating hurricanes or earthquakes.

Sixteen Caribbean nations and territories pool their risk through the program, slashing individual premiums by about 40 percent. Governments have purchased policy deductibles that would reimburse them for damage incurred during hurricanes or earthquakes over a 20-year period.

Amid the global financial crisis, member governments received a 10 percent decrease in premium costs for the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, established by the World Bank in 2006, program administrators said in a Friday statement.

Isaac Anthony, permanent secretary in St. Lucia's Ministry of Finance, said he was grateful that the World Bank and the insurance facility reduced costs to help regional governments meet "premium obligations in this year of harder economic times."

Last year, the insurance pool paid out more than $6 million to the Turks and Caicos Islands in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. In 2007, it paid $1 million to Dominica and St. Lucia after a magnitude-7.4 earthquake shook the Eastern Caribbean.

Caribbean leaders sought World Bank assistance in establishing the fund after Hurricane Ivan caused widespread devastation in 2004.

Participating governments are Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

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