Top line: Chile is the day’s dominant story — a twin-earthquake and flooding emergency has left hundreds dead and injured across Coquimbo and Huasco, with a state of catastrophe declared and damage running into the hundreds of millions, all ahead of the central bank’s 28 July decision. Meanwhile NOAA and GFDL now flag a strengthening “super” El Niño with up to an 81% chance of a record-shattering peak, and Brazil’s real holds near 5.09/USD as the US 25% tariff beds in.
Macro
- BrazilThe real is holding around 5.09/USD after the US 25% tariff on most Brazilian goods took effect this week; cooling June IPCA (4.64% y/y) keeps alive bets Copom resumes cutting from 14.25% at its 5 Aug meeting. (Trading Economics) (Trading Economics)
- MexicoThe peso extended a four-session losing streak (ten losses in the last eleven sessions) on a firmer dollar; June CPI at a five-year-low 3.37% keeps Banxico paused at 6.50%, with first-half-July inflation due 24 Jul. ([Trading Economics, 23 Jul 2026])
- PeruThe BCRP left its policy rate unchanged at 4.5% at its July meeting, signalling future moves stay data-dependent on inflation and its drivers. (Trading Economics)
- ColombiaBanRep remains the regional hawkish outlier at 12.00% after its surprise 30 Jun hike, with June inflation at a two-year-high 6.14% keeping cuts off the table into its 31 Jul decision. (Rio Times)
Financial & Insurance Markets
- LatAmThe 1 July renewal completed firmly buyer-favourable: property-cat XoL rates down 15–20% as Bermuda, London and MGA capacity crowds in, ceding commissions rise, and parametric/structured products move mainstream. (Insurance Business) (Commercial Risk)
- ChileThis week’s quake-and-flood damage lands on a market where insurance penetration sits below 5% of GDP, a fresh test of the region’s protection gap even as reinsurance capacity stays abundant and cheap. (Insurance Business)
- MexicoFitch keeps Mexico the 2026 outlier in an otherwise ‘neutral’ LatAm insurance landscape, assigning a ‘deteriorating’ sector view as tax reform pressures profitability and capital. (Reinsurance News)
- CaribbeanCCRIF’s parametric pool, grown 9% to US$1.57bn ahead of the season, anchors a deepening disaster-risk-financing market alongside Jamaica’s US$200m IBRD cat bond and planned CCRIF renewal. (Artemis) (Artemis)
Political
- ColombiaA parliamentary “palace coup” has left outgoing President Petro isolated as the right unites behind president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella; Petro has barred the military and police from being used in the 7 Aug inauguration. (Rio Times)
- BrazilCorporate Brazil is jittery as the Ibovespa slides toward multi-year lows and the Armed Forces roll out across seven states for elections, with the 25% US tariff and questions over Lula’s health compounding the strain into the 4 Oct first round. (Rio Times)
- ArgentinaPresident Milei declared a national holiday after Argentina’s 1-0 World Cup final loss to Spain, even as he pushes through cabinet shake-ups — political theatre against a still-fragile fiscal backdrop. (Rio Times)
- PeruKeiko Fujimori, who won June’s razor-thin runoff, is inaugurated 28 Jul as the country’s first woman president, alongside a newly bicameral Congress. (Rio Times)
Regulatory
- BrazilSUSEP continues bedding in the new Insurance Contract Law (Law 15.040) and reinsurance/retrocession reforms (consultation 14/2025), advancing toward EIOPA equivalence — a live watch item for cedants on claims-control clauses. (Skadden)
- MexicoCNSF, an IAIS member, runs its Solvency II-equivalent LISF framework; Fitch’s flagged tax reforms are the live 2026 pressure on insurer capital, with no new 24h regulatory action. (Latin Lawyer)
- LatAmSkadden’s prudential-solvency survey documents steady convergence toward Solvency II-style risk-based capital regimes across the region; IAIS NatCat protection-gap themes remain the standing backdrop. (Skadden)
El Niño / Climate & Nat Cat
- LatAmNOAA CPC and GFDL’s July experimental runs point to a strengthening El Niño that intensifies through the fall, with a 63% chance of a very strong Nov–Jan event and NOAA lifting the odds of a record-shattering peak to as high as 81%; it is favoured to persist into early spring 2027. (NOAA CPC) (GFDL)
- LatAmFAO and WFP have launched a first-ever joint US$202m appeal to protect 8.8 million people across 22 countries, warning the event could push 36 million into hunger; the Anticipation Hub calls this a “closing window” for anticipatory action. (Tech Times) (Anticipation Hub)
- AndesThe footprint pairs intense coastal flooding and landslides on the Pacific coast of Peru and Ecuador (with Callao and Guayaquil ports at risk of shutdown) against drought across the Central American Dry Corridor, the Colombian and Venezuelan Caribbean and the altiplano. (Rio Times) (i4sea)
- ChileMajor nat cat in the past 24h: twin earthquakes and severe flooding across Coquimbo and Huasco left hundreds dead and thousands injured, prompted a state of catastrophe, and drove early damage estimates around US$400m in a low-penetration market. (Rio Times)
- CaribbeanCCRIF’s US$1.57bn pool stays untriggered YTD; El Niño’s tendency to dampen Atlantic activity underpins below-average storm-count expectations that cat-bond investors are watching closely. (Artemis)
Coming Up
- 24 JulMexicoINEGI publishes first-half-July CPI, the next read on whether disinflation below 3.4% holds.
- 28 JulChileBCCh rate decision, its first read since the quake-and-flood emergency.
- 28 JulPeruKeiko Fujimori inaugurated president, the country’s first woman head of state.
- 31 JulColombiaBanRep rate decision with a fresh Monetary Policy Report, after June inflation hit 6.14%.
- 5 AugBrazilCopom decision; markets weigh whether easing resumes from the 14.25% Selic.
On the Radar
- ChileThe scale of the quake-and-flood loss, hitting just before the 28 Jul BCCh decision, is a fresh reminder of how thinly LatAm nat cat risk is insured even as reinsurance rates soften 15–20%.
- LatAmA strengthening super El Niño into late 2026 tests parametric triggers and cat-bond attachment assumptions at the very moment cat pricing is falling — a widening gap between softening rates and rising physical risk.
- ColombiaThe 31 Jul BanRep decision sits at the intersection of 6.14% inflation, a strained fiscal path and a contested 7 Aug government transition — the region’s clearest policy-and-politics tension.