Nationwide understands the National Housing Trust, NHT, has spent over $13 billion on Hurricane Melissa recovery and support to date.
The expenditure covers five major recovery programmes – homeowner’s insurance payouts, disaster relief grants, mortgage payment moratoria, recovery loans and the procurement of semi-permanent modular homes.
Colliecia Wright has those details.
Our news centre understands that the Trust has expended exactly $13.3 billion within the one year since the passage of the Category 5 hurricane.
The highest amount, $3.7 billion, was under the NHT’s Comprehensive Homeowners Insurance Policy.
All NHT-mortgaged properties are covered under its monthly insurance arrangement, which includes both life and peril insurance.
Subject to the terms, conditions and coverage limits of the policy, mortgagors can submit claims to support the recovery, repair or reinstatement of their homes in the event of a disaster.
It’s understood the $3.7 billion was in relation to more than 2,700 claims.
Nationwide understands 7,600 applications have been processed under the NHT’s Disaster Relief Grant programme, accounting for $2.9 billion in expenditure.
The grant provided impacted homeowners with up to $500,000 to help repair their homes, regardless of whether they were NHT contributors.
Meanwhile, approximately 36,000 NHT mortgagor households benefited from a six-month mortgage payment moratorium.
The measure was applied automatically to mortgagors in the seven most severely affected parishes, while those in other parishes applied and were assessed on a case-by-case basis.
The Trust also waived peril insurance premiums and interest payments over the six-month period from November, 2025 to April, 2026.
It’s understood the NHT expended $2.6 billion on those components. In addition, the institution processed almost 300 recovery and resilience loans.
The loan facility provided eligible homeowners with access to financing of up to 3-point-5 billion dollars at an interest rate of 2 per cent to facilitate repairs and resilience upgrades against future disasters.
One billion dollars in recovery loans was disbursed.
And the NHT has spent $3.1 billion to procure 2,500 semi-permanent modular houses as part of efforts to address the housing needs of displaced families.
So far, 1,700 of those units have arrived in Jamaica and are being distributed through through supporting government agencies under the National Shelter Recovery Programme.
