Riots, natural disasters, for municipal insurers, the bill is growing. Some decide to terminate contracts, others increase deductibles, leaving municipalities without insurance. This is the case of Coteau in the Loire which experienced a violent episode of hail and is questioning its future.
On Wednesday June 22, 2022, a violent hailstorm hit Roannais. Broken roofs, chopped corn fields, emergency security, the weather episode particularly hit the town of Coteau.
A year and a half later, the city is still scarred. The gymnasium and performance hall will be demolished. In view of the necessary repairs and their cost, the choice was made to raze the two buildings. On the Espace des Marronniers side, the ten-year-old performance hall, work will soon be able to begin. “The town suffered three and a half million in damage, with €500,000 left to pay,” calculates Sandra Creuzet-Taite, mayor without label of Coteau.
Problem is, the insurer decided to unilaterally terminate the contract and from January 1, the municipality no longer has insurance for “damage to property”. Schools, community buildings, town halls, sports halls, around fifty municipal buildings must be insured in the municipality, but no insurer took a position following the call for tenders.
“Imagine that in six months, I have another disaster, how do we pay for the repairs? If we have three million damages and we have an operating budget of around 6 million euros, how can we we pay? The community’s budget may be bankrupt.”
Sandra Creuzet-Taite, mayor without label of Coteau
If the municipality benefits from a six-month reprieve, since its old insurance must still cover it, a solution must be quickly found. “We hired a project manager, who hired an insurance broker to find us an insurer, but at what price will it be, worries the elected official. Our fear is to see the franchise quadruple or quintuple.”
Insurance problems concern several municipalities. Between riots, natural disasters, storms, the cost of work and repairs is colossal. As a result, insurance companies no longer hesitate to unilaterally terminate their contract with communities and deductibles explode. “It’s a hostage taking,” exasperates the mayor of Coteau.
In October 2023, a mission was launched by the government on the question of municipal insurance, entrusted to Alain Chrétien, mayor of Vesoul and Jean-Yves Dagès, former president of the national federation Groupama. During the congress of mayors last November, the elected official sounded the alarm at the microphone of France Bleu. “There are insurance companies specialized in communities, which today are in the process of massively withdrawing, insurers are fleeing communities and it cannot continue like this.”
“We are not customers like the others. When we terminate a contract, we prevent on-call vehicles from running, from opening schools, from opening social centers…”
Alain Chrétien, mayor of Vesoul
For municipalities, it is impossible not to be insured; in the event of a disaster, their budget would have difficulty absorbing the cost.
2024-01-02 10:08:51
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