Hurricane Beryl Triggers Record Payout for Caribbean Insurer
Hurricane Beryl’s path of destruction through the Caribbean last week triggered a record $44 million payout to the nation of Grenada from a regional catastrophe insurance fund.
The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, or CCRIF, said it will be paying Grenada $42 million in cyclone insurance, $1.1 million in fisheries insurance and $549,000 for excess rainfall tied to Beryl.
CCRIF’s single-largest payout before the storm was about $40 million to Haiti following its 2021 earthquake.
The storm also triggered payouts in St. Vincent and the Grenadines for $1.8 million, Trinidad and Tobago for $373,000, and an undetermined amount for Jamaica, the facility said in a statement Wednesday. Since its inception in 2007, CCRIF has made 65 payouts totaling more than $274 million.
Beryl hit the Caribbean as the earliest Category 5 storm on record, causing as much as $1.5 billion in damage in the Windward Islands, according to an analysis by CoreLogic. Two of Grenada’s outer islands, Carriacou and Petite Martinique, “were completely devastated,” Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell reiterated Tuesday.
Photograph: Fishermen watch their damaged fishing boats after the passage of Hurricane Beryl in Bridgetown, Barbados, July 1, 2024. Photo credit: Randy Brooks/AFP/Getty Images
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