Publication: The Agricultural Insurance Market in the Caribbean
Date
2013-03
ISSN
Published
2013-03
Author(s)
Arias Carballo, Diego
dos Reis, Laura
Abstract
Agricultural insurance is a tool to
manage agricultural production risks and help producers
reduce the effects of negative shocks and improve the
allocation of resources. It provides a mechanism to transfer
a variety of risks faced by crop, livestock, forestry, or
aquaculture production. The small island nations of the
Caribbean are highly exposed to tropical cyclones,
hurricanes, and other weather hazards-and are particularly
vulnerable to drastic losses from natural disasters. A
single catastrophic event can affect a large proportion of
clients, and this is often reflected in the insurance
premiums charged by local insurance companies, especially if
they only underwrite risk in one or a few neighboring
islands (as is common in the Caribbean). To be able to pay
many claims all at once, insurers must either purchase their
own insurance (re-insurance), which is expensive, due to the
high exposure to extreme weather events, or hold a large
amount of cash reserves. The development of market-based
agricultural insurance options in the Caribbean can range
from regional and macro-level applications (sector, country,
or groups of countries) to the micro-level (farmers).
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Arias Carballo, Diego; dos Reis, Laura. 2013. The Agricultural Insurance Market in the Caribbean. En breve;no. 183. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17030 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”