BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, (CMC) – Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley has expressed concern about the rising cost of insurance, insisting that it is a major barrier to climate resilience and threatens the viability of businesses, especially those in the tourism industry.

Addressing hundreds of delegates attending the Fifth Board Meeting of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, Mottley said she had met with officials from the Intimate Hotels of Barbados, where the issue of higher insurance rates and the challenges they face as a result were discussed.

“They need to access capital in order to refurbish and remain competitive, but if the insurance premium that they are paying puts them in a state of losses, then the ability to be able to get the new oxygen, the new capital to keep them competitive is at risk,” she explained.

“And that is why Barbados has continued to maintain, starting with a colloquium which we had in November 2019, that this issue of insurance is at the centre of much of what we have to discuss going forward. When a sector or a country or a region becomes uninsurable, they effectively become uninvestable, and that is the major nightmare that we face,” Mottley contended.

To respond to these challenges, the prime minister said a Resilience and Regeneration Fund was created to replace the Catastrophe Fund, as outlined in the 2025 Budget.

The Fund builds on earlier reforms introduced by the government, including the use of natural disaster clauses in sovereign bonds. These clauses, triggered by disaster declarations, allow Barbados to pause debt repayments and redirect resources to recovery.

Mottley said the measure has provided critical fiscal space equivalent to between 17 and 18 per cent of GDP over two years after extreme events.

The prime minister insisted that Barbados was forced to plan festivals and other economic generating activities around disasters because the country could not afford to postpone them.

She added that the Loss and Damage Fund, created at the end of COP 27, was important as it provided financial assistance to developing countries most vulnerable to climatic shocks.

“The only entity that can come to the rescue to countries at scale…after a crisis is this Loss and Damage Fund. And if we have to bring you back here to have that meeting with the major philanthropic organisations of the world, we will be happy to host it.

“But if we are not talking with each other and if we are not looking outside of what is normal and what is accepted, then we would become a victim to those who don’t believe in what you are fighting for,” Mottley underlined.