Near-total insurance absence 'critical issue'

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

The deputy prime minister said the near-total absence of hurricane insurance was a “critical issue” after it emerged that Dorian-ravaged communities in Grand Bahama were virtually uninsured.

K Peter Turnquest said The Bahamas needs to develop ways to either “incentivise” persons to buy insurance, or structure programmes where risks can be pooled, after it was revealed that properties surveyed in Grand Bahama’s East and West End were 99 percent and 96 percent uninsured, respectively, when Dorian struck.

“As in most Family Islands you would find that insurance uptake is very, very low,” Mr Turnquest said. “That is a critical issue that we have to address as a government moving forward. As you know with that exposure it typically falls back to the government to provide the backstop for those persons who find themselves in an unfortunate situation where they lost everything.

“Even when we talk outside of hurricane risk, and even with fire, when there is a disaster it falls on the community or the state to assist. So we need to figure out some ways to incentivise and to offer programmes so that people can have more of an opportunity to participate in that risk-sharing programme that we call insurance.”

He was responding to the findings of a recent survey commissioned by the Bahamas Shelter Cluster (BSC), an organisation which is attached to the Global Shelter Cluster (GSC), an inter-agency body that supports people affected by natural disasters. Some 70 percent of Freeport properties were also found to be uninsured.

With Grand Bahama’s East and West End similar to the Family Islands, Mr Turnquest acknowledged that many residents will have built their homes themselves or inherited property from family. This, he added, meant there was not a strong incentive to purchase insurance, while many may have viewed the product as cost prohibitive.

He likened purchasing property and casualty insurance to taking care of one’s health, adding that while it may be expensive it was only when a disaster happened that persons realise they need it.