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BVI Seeks $100M in Quake Cover
The British Virgin Islands issued an RFP for $100M in earthquake cover with a deadline of April 14 for proposals, according to a statement from BVI’s Ministry of Finance.
According to the release, the policy should cover “rehabilitation, reconstruction, restoration and revitalisation of standard eligible insurable assets.”
Procurement Coordinator Ishma Rhymer said in a prepared statement:
Meshed in this approach is the need to ensure that public infrastructure that may be severely damaged because of an earthquake can recover in short order to allow for the continuity of Government and its services.
According to the RFP, eligible bidders are required:
- A valid Insurance BVI license pursuant to the government’s Insurance Act 2008;
- certificates of Good Standing from the Director of the Social Security Board and the Commissioner of Inland Revenue;
- the date of issue on the certificates must be current, and should be no earlier than one month prior to the date of submission.;
- firms registered outside the British Virgin Islands need to submit “equivalent documents relevant to the firm’s place of registration.;
- and bids must be received no later than 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 14.
RMS Owner Cautious on COVID-19 Fallout
DMGT Group, owner of catastrophe modeling firm Risk Managment Solutions (RMS), announced in its pre-close trading update last week that underlying revenue was up 3% over the five month period in line with expectations.
DMGT said that the COVID-19 crisis should not negatively impact is RMS’ BtoB industry segment in the short term because it receives 90% of its revenue from annual subscriptions. But, DMGT added:
COVID-19 may, however, result in customers taking longer to make purchasing decisions and delay projects.
AIR COVID-19 Update
Modeling firm AIR Worldwide said in a statement that the number of “mild to moderately symptomatic” global COVIID-19 cases could range between 2,000,000 and 7,000,000 from April 1 to April 15, and that severe cases could range between 1,000,000 and 3,000,000, with deaths ranging between 70,000 and 230,000.
“Based on the estimations and projections from the AIR Pandemic Model, we estimate that this may represent a moderately conservative projection of cases; the vast majority will be asymptomatic or have mild symptoms,” said Dr. Narges Dorratoltaj, principal scientist at AIR Worldwide. “
Dorratoltaj added that the low end and high end ranges of the projection depend on a number government quarantine and containment measures.
If such containment measures—driven by international and/or local authorities—are successful, this could restrict the human-to-human transmission sufficiently to bring the eventual number of cases to or even below the low end of the modeled projected range of cases.
AIR said explained that COVID-19 has a higher case fatality rate (CFR) compared to seasonal flu (~0.1%) and a lower CFR compared to the 2003 SARS outbreak (~5.0%-10.0%). The current CFR ranges between 0.5% and 4%.
CFR is estimated to be more than 5% for individuals with pre-existing conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory conditions, hypertension, and cancer, and more than 8% for people older than 70 years old.
