The Fiji Government’s first sovereign parametric insurance cover, to help ease the cost burden of natural disasters on national budgets, was formalised with the signing of a commitment letter in Marrakech, Morocco this week.
The Fiji government will be insured by the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Company (PCRIC), of which it is a member.
“The reality is that we now must fork out more money from Government’s coffers towards responding in times of emergencies, building climate resilient infrastructure and relocation of population affected by rising sea levels and loss of arable lands,” Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Professor Biman Prasad said at the signing. PCRIC was represented by its board chairwoman Sarah-Jane Wild.
The government had set aside $2.5 million for its parametric insurance and the amount is projected to increase to $7.5m over the next two years, according to its 2023-2024 budget estimates.
Fiji’s ‘Cat-In-A-Circle’ policy from PCRIC is designed to activate a payout within 10 to 20 days of a tropical cyclone, PCRIC’s Finance and Planning manager Pankaj Singh had told The Fiji Times in an earlier interview.
Fiji also has a 50 billion Japanese Yen ($F760m) concessional loan agreement with the Government of Japan formalised by the previous government, as a “stand-by loan for disaster recovery and rehabilitation”, designed for disbursement through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) upon declaration of a state of disaster.
