CCRIF partners with Guardian General on livelihood insurance

Guardian General Insurance Limited will offer coverage to individuals and organisations against economic losses that result from extreme weather associated with wind and rain, under an agreement with regional insurer CCRIF that will see the Trinidad-based company distributing its livelihood protection policy or LPP.

CCRIF Spc is a regional provider of parametric insurance mainly to governments of the Caribbean as well as Central America, but it has been branching out into private partnerships to distribute a microinsurance product to vulnerable people and ventures.

“We see this partnership between CCRIF and Guardian General Insurance Limited as a win-win,” said CCRIF CEO Isaac Anthony. “What is key for us at CCRIF is that Guardian General operates in all of the five pilot countries, and we see this as a first step towards scaling up and making this innovative product available to the various target groups. With Guardian General and its networks across the pilot countries, we will have multiple distribution channels for persons to access the livelihood protection policy,” he said.

Guardian General, which operates in 21 Caribbean countries, said the LLP would be targeted at low-income and vulnerable persons, such as small farmers, seasonal tourism workers, fishers, market and food vendors, musicians, day labourers and small entrepreneurs.

Under the programme, these persons will be provided with quick cash payouts following extreme weather events, specifically related to high winds and heavy rainfall.

The LPP, which was first tested about a decade ago, was developed under the Climate Risk Adaptation and Insurance in the Caribbean project, CRAIC, which has been promoting microinsurance for climate risk in the Caribbean since 2011. CRAIC is a collaboration of the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative, CCRIF and ILO Impact Insurance, with support from the International Climate Initiative of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.

It is being implemented in five pilot countries, namely Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, St Lucia and Trinidad & Tobago.

Learning project

“Parametric products can be instrumental in alleviating the immediate negative financial impact on an underserved portion of our population, such as SME owners or self-employed individuals in the aquaculture, agribusiness, food & beverage, construction, hospitality, and transportation sectors,” said President of Guardian General Dean Romany at the signing of the memorandum of understanding with CCRIF Spc.

CRAIC is the first project of its kind in the Caribbean region and was designed as a learning project.

As with other CCRIF policies, the LPP assures quick payouts to policyholders for extreme weather events. For example, in 2013, following the introduction of the LPP in St Lucia, policyholders received the first payouts on their policies after the December rains that affected the island. As with CCRIF’s sovereign parametric policies, payouts were made within 14 days.

Using lessons learned from the first decade of the LLP’s distribution, CCRIF says it will be wider access to the policy in the five pilot countries.

CMC