Businessman says burnt by downtown insurance blacklist
Published:Monday | June 6, 2022 | 12:07 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
Entrepreneur Richard Shepherd says that he was spurned by insurance companies years ago when he explored the prospect of protecting his business investment.
His upholstery shop was located on High Holborn Street on the fringes of the downtown Kingston business district – blacklisted by many insurance agents because of the crime and arson risks that haunt the heart of the Jamaican capital.
As his shop was incinerated in a ferocious blaze on Saturday, Shepherd rued those years of rejection as he watched the disaster unfolding before him. What is worse, he is gutted that he will have to rebuild all by himself.
Even if he could have secured insurance, it would have been at punitive and stratospheric rates that would make payments uneconomic and impossible.
Amid the estimated loss of J$25 million in value, the 57-year-old entrepreneur is hopeful of a silver lining.
“Ambition is there, but a bare disaster a lick we, but we still a go through. We nah watch that still, you know,” Shepherd told The Gleaner during an interview on Sunday while cleaning the burnt-out shell of the building he occupied for decades.
“It nuh make sense mi deh yah a look and a bawl. That naw help mi.”
The cause of the fire is still unknown.
Units from the Rollington Town and Trench Town fire stations responded to the blaze.
The fire damaged the roofs of adjoining houses, but residents bravely fought the blaze with buckets of water as brigade personnel joined in the effort.
Relief and hope came for the nervous residents as a downpour of rain helped extinguish the fire.
Shepherd was not at the location when the blaze started but received a call around 10:30 a.m. that his business place was on fire.
“Some people say a next door [it started]. Some people say a inna my place. A different, different story you’re getting,” he said.
The upholstery shop was hit hard in recent years – worsened by the coronavirus pandemic detected in Jamaica in March 2020 – and he has been reduced to having only one staff member.
Shepherd is no stranger to tragedy.
His motor vehicle valued at J$600,000 was stolen at Ocean Boulevard when he and others went to ring in the new year for 2019 with views of fireworks at the Kingston waterfront.
Upholstery has been the bedrock of Shepherd’s working life, honing his expertise in the trade since he was 19 years old at a shop along North Street, also in downtown Kingston.
He then started his own business at age 23.
Unlike some disaster victims in the downtown Kingston region – an endemic fire hazard – Shepherd is thankful that he has no loans outstanding. And the flint-faced businessman is determined to recover.
He said he’s not pressuring anyone for handouts but is intent on purchasing a compressor soon to rise from the embers.
“From there’s life, there’s hope, so we have to still live,” he said.