KINGSTON, Jamaica — At a time of rising climate uncertainty, shifting regulatory standards, and growing legal risk across the Caribbean, a top insurance industry leader is calling on regional enterprises to reframe how they think about insurance coverage. Marvin Douglas, Deputy General Manager of Sales at Marathon Insurance Brokers, is pressing Jamaican and Caribbean business leaders to abandon the long-held view of insurance as an avoidable routine overhead, and instead embrace it as a form of strategic risk capital that can shield firms from catastrophic financial collapse. In an increasingly unstable global and regional operating environment, Douglas warned that failure to properly transfer unmanageable risk leaves companies dangerously exposed to ruinous losses.
Douglas delivered his remarks at the 2026 Annual Conference for Rotary District 7020, an event held this year under the unifying theme “Recognise needs, transform lives”. In his address, he argued that the outdated perspective of insurance as a forgotten “paper in a drawer” has no place in modern risk management. Instead, he positioned coverage as a foundational tool for building organizational resilience and guaranteeing long-term business continuity.
At its core, Douglas explained, insurance creates a structured framework for transferring risk. It lets businesses trade the threat of unpredictable, catastrophic losses that could sink an operation for predictable, fixed premium costs that fit into annual budgets. By offloading this extreme risk, companies free up capital that would otherwise be held in reserve for emergency losses, freeing those funds to be invested in expansion, innovation, and improved customer service.
A key trend Douglas highlighted is the steady uptick in professional liability claims across Jamaica and the broader Caribbean region. Today, professionals ranging from doctors and lawyers to engineers and independent consultants face far greater exposure to lawsuits, as the region shifts toward a more litigious culture. Douglas emphasized that professional indemnity insurance fills two critical needs: it covers potential damage awards against practitioners, and it covers the cost of legal defense—an expense that can financially cripple a small or medium-sized firm long before a court issues a final ruling.
Against the backdrop of tightening professional standards across all Caribbean industries, this coverage becomes even more non-negotiable, Douglas noted. Beyond covering costs, it protects the professional reputations that practitioners spend decades building, ensuring that one single honest error does not erase years of hard work and community trust.
Douglas also drew attention to the underappreciated value of business interruption insurance, which he described as a “hidden hero” of post-disaster recovery. While most business owners prioritize traditional property insurance to cover physical damage to facilities and equipment, many overlook the crippling financial strain that comes with operational downtime. This strain includes lost revenue during the shutdown and fixed ongoing costs such as staff salaries and rent that continue to accrue even when the business cannot generate income.
For a hurricane-prone region that also faces regular global supply chain disruptions, business interruption coverage is the safety net that lets companies remain financially solvent while they rebuild and recover from major disruptive events, Douglas explained. Without this coverage, even firms with solid property insurance can be forced to close permanently after a major shock.
Looking toward the future of regional risk management, Douglas identified parametric insurance as an innovative emerging solution for climate-related risks, which have grown more frequent and severe in recent years. Unlike traditional insurance policies, which require time-consuming on-site damage assessments before payouts can be issued, parametric policies automatically trigger payouts when predefined, objective conditions are met. Examples include a hurricane reaching a set category of intensity, or regional rainfall exceeding a pre-agreed threshold.
This fast-payout model makes parametric insurance particularly well-suited for Jamaica’s two largest economic sectors: agriculture and tourism. Both sectors are extremely vulnerable to climate shocks, and both require immediate access to liquidity to begin recovery and avoid long-term revenue loss. By cutting through the delays of traditional claims processing, parametric coverage gets funds into businesses’ hands when they need them most.
Throughout his address, Douglas stressed that building meaningful organizational resilience depends on proactive risk management, rather than reactive crisis response. While businesses cannot prevent natural disasters, unexpected legal claims, or supply chain collapses, they have full control over how they prepare for and manage those risks. When structured correctly to match a firm’s unique risk profile, he concluded, insurance delivers the financial stability that lets organizations keep operating and serving their local communities, even in the aftermath of major disruptive events.
