Borrower insurance: MEPs vote on the possibility of changing it at any time

The big bang has indeed arrived.

Parliamentarians voted this Thursday afternoon in the National Assembly on the bill establishing infra-annual termination, ie the possibility for individuals to terminate their borrower insurance at any time.

Presented by Patricia Lemoine (Agir), the law, supported by the government, was adopted almost unanimously (61 votes for, one against).

It aims to simplify the process and leave "free choice to the consumer" in the face of the monopoly of the often more expensive insurance banks, which nibble 88% of the market which brews 7 billion euros per year.

“It's a huge development! We are expecting a tsunami. The six million borrowers will finally be able to gain purchasing power and change insurer as they see fit, ”says Eric Maumy, Managing Director of April, alternative insurer and co-founder of the association for the promotion of competition in creditor insurance (Acade).

The banking networks, them, look gloomy. With historically low interest rates on mortgage loans, borrower insurance is one of the only ways to achieve significant margins. "Maintaining the current framework for termination on anniversary date allows both competition - easy to exercise for the interested customer - on the anniversary date, which is reminded to him each year sufficiently in advance, and to preserve this shared model by offering offers to as many people as possible ”, reminds the French Banking Federation (FBF), which fears a“ demutualization ”of risks, in contradiction with the“ French model ”of insurance.

Until then, changing borrower insurance had been an obstacle course, despite an accumulation of legislative texts passed over the past ten years.

In 2010, the Lagarde law authorizes the borrower to take out a contract elsewhere than in the bank issuing the loan.

Four years later, the Hamon law makes it possible to change loan insurance at any time during the first year of the contract by respecting fifteen days' notice.

Then the Bourquin amendment, voted in 2018, establishes the possible termination on each anniversary date of the contract if the borrower warns his insurer at least two months in advance by registered mail.

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Before being able to change it when one wishes it, with a simple registered mail, the senators still have to examine and vote the law, probably at the beginning of next year.

“There will then be a period of one year before it comes into effect,” explains Éric Maumy.

Beyond termination at any time, the new law also provides that the insurer informs its client each year of the possibility of changing contracts, under penalty of penalties.

With a simplified administrative procedure, bankers "will no longer be able to stand in the way", underlines Eric Maumy, but will only be able to ask if the new contract covers the same guarantees.