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Minister of Agriculture Dr Christopher Tufton.

Minister of Agriculture Dr Christopher Tufton is expected to divulge details of a crop-insurance scheme for the agricultural sector during his contribution to the 2008-2009 Budget Debate on April 16.

The Agriculture Ministry has been in "discussion with the World Bank and the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) in terms of coming up with a model that fits the reality we face", Permanent Secretary Donovan Stanberry told a recent Gleaner Editors' Forum.

Farmers have long been agitating for a crop-insurance scheme to ease the damage from not only frequent hurricanes, but drought conditions.

The sector undertook a study funded by the Japanese government in 2005 to see how best it could provide coverage for catastrophic risk, but details of the completed study are yet to be divulged to the public.

At the same time, local tourism interests are taking steps to procure insurance coverage for resort properties, following damage from a series of hurricanes over the past three years.

Conducting survey

Speaking with The Sunday Gleaner, executive director of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association, Camille Needham, says the group is currently conducting a survey with a view to identifying hotels that are not insured or are underinsured, in a bid to negotiate with local insurance companies to provide more affordable insurance for its members.

"We have sent out questionnaires to our membership to obtain some preliminary information to assist us in discussions with the insurance industry," discloses Needham.

Resort properties, especially those on the beachfront, have been facing burdensome insurance premiums falling anywhere between a low of one and a quarter per cent and a high of five per cent on the sum insured. This compares with inland properties, which often pay a premium of one per cent or less on the sum insured.

But high prices for premiums is not the only reason resort-property owners go uninsured or underinsured in Jamaica. Only three of the major insurance companies on the island are willing to cover beachfront properties.

Most insurance companies - which do not have the capacity to undertake the risk faced by the hotels - are not willing to seek reinsurance in the overseas market. This forces some resort- property owners to go directly to the international market to seek coverage - a venture which is just as expensive.