The Mesoamerican Reef (MAR) Fund Insurance Programme, developed by MAR Fund and WTW uses parametric insurance to rapidly fund coral reef restoration following hurricane damage across the 1,000 km Mesoamerican Reef spanning Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. The programme currently covers 11 protected reef sites, which collectively support over 2 million people through coastal protection, fisheries, and tourism. The parametric trigger is based on hurricane wind intensity at each site, where when wind speeds exceed predefined thresholds, stepped payouts are automatically released without the need for loss assessment, with amounts tailored to each site’s response capacity and costs. Payouts flow through MAR Fund’s Emergency Fund to pre-trained local response brigades who carry out immediate reef rescue activities. The programme is nature-positive by design: it pre-arranges financing specifically for ecosystem restoration, addresses the failure of traditional philanthropic funding to mobilise quickly enough after disasters, builds lasting local conservation capacity through its network of reef guardians, and is now being scaled across the wider Caribbean.
This project was supported by the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA). This project was undertaken with the financial support of the UK through the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Government of Canada through the federal Department of Environment and Climate Change. Ce projet a été réalisé avec l’appui financier du Royaume-Uni, agissant par l’entremise du ministère de l’Environnement, de l’Alimentation et des Affaires rurales, et du gouvernement du Canada agissant par l’entremise du ministère fédéral de l’Environnement et du Changement climatique.