Bruno Le Maire will ask insurers to do more for the hotel and catering industry

The Minister of the Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire announced Tuesday that he would ask insurance companies to do more to support the hotel and restaurant sector, very heavily penalized by the containment measures.

"

", declared the Minister during a questioning session in the National Assembly.

Read also: The war rages between restaurateurs and insurers

Since March, the insurance sector has deployed various measures to support the economy, ranging from a contribution of 400 million euros to the public fund to support SMEs to an investment program of more of a billion euros, through various initiatives taken individually by the companies.

In total, these individual and collective measures represent 3.8 billion euros in commitments.

Notwithstanding these efforts, insurers have been accused since the start of the crisis of not doing enough to help businesses, weakened by the Covid-19 crisis with its share of containment measures and administrative closings of businesses.

In particular, tensions crystallized around the issue of operating losses.

The sector has been ensuring since the start of the crisis that these losses are not insurable.

In fact, the vast majority of contracts exclude any cover for this type of situation.

But a few badly drafted contracts have spread doubt and given rise to dozens of disputes before the courts between restaurateurs and insurance companies, resulting in a wide variety of judgments.

In recent weeks, the insurance sector has once again been singled out after recent letters sent by insurers to thousands of clients, traders and in particular restaurateurs, asking them to accept an amendment to their contract. insurance concerning operating losses, under penalty of termination of their contract.

The federation explains that these amendments are intended only to clarify the scope of coverage by explicitly excluding such a crisis from certain contracts that are too vague.