PCRIC: A Catalyst for Mobilizing Essential Financial Resources for Regional Resilience
In an historic occasion for the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Company (PCRIC), the CEO, Mr. Aholotu Palu, represented the company at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) 2023 Meeting in New York.
The distinctive feature of parametric insurance lies in the swiftness and scale of payouts once a disaster occurs. Mr. Palu emphasized this aspect as a part of his intervention where he served as a panel member. The panel’s theme was,”Frontline Leaders: How to drive resources to island states leading the way.”
He also offered insights into PCRIC’s background and its growing relevance in the Pacific region, given the shifting dynamics of disasters in terms of their increasing intensity and frequency. He underscored that parametric insurance, being based on predefined parameters, allows for rapid mobilization of funding. Furthermore, he highlighted the company’s establishment on a scalable foundation and its ongoing efforts to scale up, scale out and scale deep its services across the Pacific region.
Another key point made by the PCRIC CEO was the necessity of aligning the product design with each country’s unique risk profile. This alignment is crucial to prevent any disagreements or misunderstandings with client countries regarding the specific hazards and coverage magnitude of a particular policy.
Mr. Palu concluded by expressing two major concerns that weigh on him: the possibility of a disaster occurring with no resulting payout and the affordability of premiums. He stressed that the Pacific region bears an unfair burden of climate change risk and urged the global north to channel financial resources through PCRIC to subsidize the escalating premium costs due to limited fiscal capacity to mitigate the impact of natural disasters.
