Jamaica faces Insurance Crisis following Hurricane Melissa

By Michael Rodriguez

For Years Jamaica has faced a significant long-standing infrastructural issue with land ownership, where approximately 40% of all land parcels (roughly 350,000 land parcels to be exact) lack registered land titles. 

Although the land is usually not registered, because for generations it was not really bought and sold, it was passed down between families and maintained by communities. 

However as time has progressed, the land today could be Representing 200 Billion Dollars worth of currently inaccessible equity. 

Without proper categorization there is no way to accurately pinpoint what not only the land is worth, but what it would require to repair the land with insurance as well.

After Hurricane Melissa this issue became heavily prevalent, due to the lack of land titles preventing Everyday Jamaican Citizens from obtaining insurance for their homes and being able to repair and rebuild after the Hurricane Season.

This is extremely important because Jamaica is an agricultural economy and although the people are resilient they need viable homes, tools and business to maintain their economy.

 Recently However, The government adjusted its requirements for proof of land ownership to include more flexible verification measures. 

For now we can only hope that these measures lead to a better more understanding insurance policy that is able to help the people on a larger scale.

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