Weston lobbies for cheaper insurance for homeowners

Lennox Weston, minister of state within the Ministry of Finance, has strongly suggested that the time has come for the government to re-examine the way home insurance is offered to residents, while emphasising the fact that not everyone can afford it.
During a recent interview, Senator Weston said it is almost impossible for people living within hurricane zones, with large assets, to be without home insurance.
“I think we are going to have to speak to the private insurance companies to see if we can come up with a product so that most of our people will be able to have insurance,” Weston said.
“Once you have insurance, the public sector will be taken care of and also the private sector.”
Weston likened his suggestion to the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), which was set up in 2017.
CCRIF was formed as the first multi-country risk pool in the world and was the first insurance instrument to successfully develop parametric policies backed by both traditional and capital markets.
It was designed as a regional catastrophe fund for Caribbean governments to limit the financial impact of devastating hurricanes and earthquakes by quickly providing financial liquidity when a policy is triggered. 
In 2014, the facility was restructured into a segregated portfolio company (SPC) to facilitate expansion into new products and geographic areas and is now named CCRIF SPC.
Antigua and Barbuda received over EC $18 million from the fund last week following the passage of Hurricane Irma and its devastating impact on the sister island.
The government senator said the government would be lobbying the World Bank,  the original architect of the fund, to push larger countries to invest more resources into the fund to increase the payout pool to regional countries.
(More in today’s Daily Observer)