- Insurance expenses surged 223% in 2025
- Reinsurance recoveries covered $48.3 billion
- NHT processed claims faster than private insurers
- PM publicly pressed insurers to speed up
Andrew Houston Moncure, managing director of Bluefields Bay Villas and Suites in Westmoreland, described a specific failure in a Jamaica Observer article: his team mobilised immediately after Hurricane Melissa, while his own insurer, in his account, was largely missing in action. Insurance industry commentator Cedric Stephens, writing separately in the Gleaner, called Moncure’s account not merely a personal grievance but a case study in systemic failure, and used it to argue for reform of how Jamaica’s insurers handle catastrophe claims.
The scale behind individual complaints like Moncure’s is substantial. Financial Services Commission data show insurance service expenses surged 223 percent, roughly $97 billion, in 2025, driven largely by Melissa claims, with insured property losses estimated by Verisk’s Extreme Event Solutions at between US$2.2 billion and US$4.2 billion within a week of the storm. Net reinsurance recoveries of $48.3 billion helped insurers absorb a substantial share of that loss, and reinsurance contract held assets rose 472 percent, roughly $77.7 billion, specifically from Melissa-related payouts.
Government made a public point of contrasting the National Housing Trust’s response speed with the private sector’s. Prime Minister Andrew Holness commended the NHT for processing 3,835 insurance claims worth approximately $7 billion relatively quickly, while directly challenging private insurers to speed up their own settlements, warning that delays were stalling the broader national recovery. The NHT’s broader post-Melissa response included more than 5,000 home repair grants worth nearly $2 billion, six-month mortgage moratoriums for roughly 36,000 affected mortgagors, and special loans to help homeowners replace vulnerable zinc roofs with more resilient concrete slab construction.
Stephens’s reform agenda centres on governance, claims metrics and firm deadlines, framed explicitly around what he calls the social contract at the heart of insurance: policyholders pay premiums in good faith, and insurers promise financial relief when disaster strikes. Left unaddressed, he warns, the risk is a genuine erosion of trust in insurance itself, pushing more Jamaican property owners toward underinsurance, exactly the vulnerability a Category 5 storm is best positioned to expose.
