The 10 August earthquake: how the insurance sector has responded

On 10 August 2026 at 7:34 a.m., a magnitude 7.4 earthquake centred in San José del Palmar (Chocó), 103 kilometres deep, shook much of the country. According to the Servicio Geológico Colombiano, it is the largest earthquake recorded in Colombia so far this century.¹

One month later, the national disaster risk agency (UNGRD) reported, as of 9 September, 331 people dead, 4,505 injured and 111 missing; 466,709 people affected across 16 departments and 498 municipalities; 202,002 homes damaged and 36,326 destroyed.²

Claims, week by week

Fasecolda, the insurers' association, publishes a weekly report with the figures supplied by its members. Four days after the earthquake there were 10,465 claims with an estimated value of COP 281 billion.³

As of 23 October, insurers had received 102,370 claims from 519 municipalities in 31 departments. The estimated cost of settling them had reached COP 7.1 trillion and COP 1.08 trillion had been paid. Of all claims, 26,915 (26%) had received at least one payment.⁴

• By line of insurance, most claims were under earthquake cover (60,673), followed by home (20,740) and fire (13,871).
• Valle del Cauca has the largest estimated value (COP 3.14 trillion in reserves), followed by Risaralda (COP 2.39 trillion).
• Pereira leads payments by city (COP 362,297 million), followed by Cali (COP 230,419 million), Dosquebradas, Armenia and Manizales.⁴

What the Financial Superintendence required

The Government declared a national disaster with Decree 1171 of 11 August. On 26 August, the Financial Superintendence issued External Circular 007, asking insurers to speed up loss assessment and payments, since the earthquake is a well-known fact, and to make premium payments easier.⁵

The gap it exposed

As of March 2026, Colombia had 2,681,964 properties insured against earthquake, 1.65 million of them homes. Even so, Fasecolda estimates that only about 9.3% of the country's homes have any kind of home insurance. People without a policy depend on the support the authorities provide.³⁶

If you have a claim in progress or are not sure what your policy covers, at Jalal we review it with you and stay with you until payment.