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The establishment of comprehensive 'risk data' information bases, also permits the insurance industry to participate in loss mitigation incentives by providing tools to better understand and price local risks. Such information allows taking into account detailed characteristics such as building code ratings when determining potential loss costs to be used in rating insurance coverage for individual properties. This results not only in fairer prices for insurance but also provides an economic incentive for communities to strengthen their building codes and enforcement.

Insurers can take a number of steps to help promote investment in vulnerability mitigation measures and to reduce potential loss profiles on underwritten risks. For this purpose, industry service functions could be established under a specialized industry sponsored office (similar to the Insurance Services Office in the U.S.), in order to assign 'grades' to communities based on the quality of their building codes and their enforcement. For this, a grading schedule reflecting building code enforcement can be established for qualifying communities which may be eligible for premium discounts. Under such a program, grades would be assigned to local communities based on structural factors as well as public protection services (e.g.: disaster preparedness, fire fighting capability, etc.) available. Loss cost estimation and associated premium levels should, in addition to the above factors, be also based on the characteristics of individual properties including location and risk exposure in accordance with the hazard mapping informnation discussed above.

# **_Structural Measures_**

Structural measures have also made but limited headway in the Caribbean. The Caribbean Unified Building Code (CUBIC) has now progressed into useable codes in several nations but, as was recently observed, these improved codes lack any effective enforcement practices. Limited progress on retrofitting can be attributed primarily to the lack of incentives and concerted leadership in the promotion of benefit features and practices.

A fee based approach which might result in more effective enforcement actions would be to set up a Bureau de Controle type firm at the regional level, with the responsibility to inspect building during the construction cycle. While political decisions would need to be made to permit such an entity to operate as a regional private concern with fees charged to either property owners or their financiers, the benefits would be direct given the economic incentives for such a firm to ensure that code compliance was undertaken. Such entities could also enter into cost sharing arrangements with banks and insurance companies as well as property owners, to share the costs more broadly.

For structural measures, information exists on demonstrably worthwhile mitigation technologies. However, a major exception relates to catastrophe event return period probabilities which are essential in determining the cost/benefit trade offs of different types of mitigation actions. For this, historical patterns are limited to a few centuries; also changing and/or unmeasured patterns (e.g., Greenhouse effect and El Niflo) exacerbate the challenges of forecasting frequency probabilities.

However, even the extensive information available is too seldom articulated in layman language of practical use by those who should derive the most implementation benefits. These include development decision-makers as well as professionals and