A coated ceramic cutting insert for removing material from a workpiece, as well as a method for making the same, that includes a ceramic substrate with a rake surface and at least one flank surface wherein a cutting edge is at the juncture therebetween. A wear-resistant coating scheme that includes an alumina-containing base coating layer region, which has at least one exposed alumina coating layer, deposited by chemical vapor deposition on the substantially all of the surfaces of the ceramic substrate that experience wear during removal of material from the workpiece. The exposed alumina coating layer exhibits a blasted stress condition ranging between about 50 MPa (tensile stress) and about −2 GPa (compressive) as measured by XRD using the Psi tilt method and the (024) reflection of alumina. The exposed alumina coating layer is the result of wet blasting a titanium-containing outer coating layer region from the surface of the alumina-containing base coating layer region.