Here, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Christopher Sinckler (left) receives a token to represent the US$1,728,277 payment after the passage of Tropical Storm Matthew, from CCRIF Directors, Faye Hardy (centre) and Desirée Cherebin.
By:
Regina Selman Moore
The Government of Barbados will be moving to redirect funds from the local Catastrophe Fund, into a number of essential products offered by the CCRIF SPC, formerly known as the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, to ensure that it has coverage for a number of disaster related events.
Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Christopher Sinckler made the announcement yesterday, on location at Government Headquarters, Bay Street, St. Michael, where officials of the CCRIF as well as disaster management officials gathered for a brief “CCRIF Payout” ceremony.
“In the 2015 Budget I believe it was, I made a suggestion which some people poured cold water on, but I think it is still important. We have a Catastrophe Fund here in Barbados that we started I believe in 2016/2017, which has had a degree of challenges, in terms of people accessing the Fund. The way in which it was done, the legislation was not good. We sought to amend that legislation, to try to make it a little easier, but it still proved and has proven to be difficult,” Sinckler explained.
“I made the suggestion, given the wonderful work that CCRIF has been doing, that we reform that Catastrophe Fund and the legislation and the staff has worked on some recommendations which they have made to me as Minister and which I agree with, to have some of those resources put into our CCRIF products, where we can buy additional coverage for events, because they have demonstrated one, that they do have the appropriate products for the circumstances and…they are expanding on those to go into areas that we know are critically exposed at the moment and two, the rate of disbursement, because of the model they are using, has been very, very efficient,” he stated.
“I still hold that that is an appropriate and responsible thing to do and we are going to be pursuing that in particular,” Sinckler commented.
Desirée Cherebin, Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) Director, meanwhile revealed that following the recent passage of Tropical Storm Matthew, which later became a hurricane, the total payout to Barbados on its Tropical Cyclone and Excess Rainfall policies by CCRIF, was US$1,728,277.
These payments represent the 3rd and 4th payouts CCRIF has made to Barbados. Overall, CCRIF has made four payouts to Barbados, totalling in excess of US$11.6 million. This constitutes 17% of all payouts made to date by CCRIF, Cherebin revealed.
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