Waylon Wong

And about 10 years ago, the largest Ebola outbreak in history occurred in West Africa.

More than 10,000 people died.

Michael and his colleagues were sitting in that not-so-cushy office in D.C.

thinking, what we really need is some kind of international pandemic insurance so that poorer countries could get some help.

Okay, so of course they didn't literally say that, but that's the essence of what a cat bond is.

And the World Bank ended up raising more than $300 million worth of these new pandemic cat bonds.

The World Bank's first ever pandemic bond was set to last for three years, starting in 2017.

By 2019, some people were criticizing the World Bank for this deal because here these investors were making fat profits.

And what were the chances even that there would be a worldwide pandemic that could trigger this bond?

One famous economist called the whole thing an embarrassing mistake.

Nowadays, entire nations are turning to cat bonds to protect them from the risk of natural disasters.

Michael and his team at the World Bank kind of pioneered the idea.

They've been helping countries design their own catastrophe bonds.

They've worked with the governments of Mexico, Chile, and Colombia, the Philippines.

In 2021, Jamaica worked with the World Bank to offer its very first catastrophe bond to international investors.

Now, the way they're designed, the government only gets a payout if a really serious hurricane passes over Jamaica.

There are actually specific meteorological requirements.

The bond documents have this map of Jamaica divided up by a grid.

And for the bond to trigger, there has to be at least this amount of air pressure in this part of the grid.

Take Hurricane Beryl last summer.