A very sharp increase in claims
“In 2023, more than 2 billion euros in CatNat premiums were collected, to cover between 1.6 and 3 billion euros in damages – all of which have not been assessed, recalled Christine Lavarde. These amounts are very lower than the overall cost of climate disasters, i.e. 6.5 billion euros, because certain assets, notably those of local authorities, are not insured by this regime.” “In 2024, the trajectory is even worse: over the first six months, the cost of climate losses increases by 20%, continued the senator. For nine consecutive years, the CatNat regime has been in deficit – to the tune of 703 million euros in 2023.” And the outlook is very bleak since the increase in claims due to climate change is estimated at 40% by 2050, while the cost of “drought” claims alone would represent 43 billion euros between 2020 and 2050 compared to 13, 8 billion euros over the previous thirty years.
For the Senate Finance Committee, the increase in the rate of the “surcharge” levied on all household home insurance contracts, which will increase from 12 to 20% on January 1, 2025, will not guarantee the balance of the diet in the long term. Without calling into question this decision, Christine Lavarde’s bill intends to “automate” the revaluation of this additional premium from 2027, on the basis of a coefficient reviewed every three years depending on the evolution of the claims experience. “This will avoid what we will all experience on our bills on January 1: a very significant jump. Because for more than ten years, we have not increased this rate, even though claims costs were soaring,” assured the senator, hoping for a rapid examination of the text by the National Assembly.
The mechanism was largely approved by the upper house, with the exception of a part of the left which accused the right of “giving pride of place to insurers and a little less to victims”, according to ecologist Ghislaine Senée . The environmentalist and communist groups also abstained. The government, on the other hand, “fully” supported the Senate’s proposal, deemed “acceptable and fair” by Marie-Agnès Poussier-Winsback, Minister for the Social and Solidarity Economy.
Disagreements over the Barnier fund
The senators also voted on a large section on risk prevention, notably finding a compromise with the government on the establishment of a “zero-rate eco-loan” (PTZ) to allow individuals to carry out work. risk prevention. The government obtained the adoption of an amendment so that the eco-PTZ intended to finance prevention work against clay shrinkage-swelling (RGA) targets main residences built before 2020 and that the scope of financeable work is specified, pending the publication of a decree establishing the list. Several disagreements nevertheless emerged, notably on the Barnier fund, created in 1995 by the current Prime Minister and dedicated to financing work to reduce the vulnerability of buildings exposed to natural disasters.
Michel Barnier announced his revaluation of 75 million euros, to reach 300 million euros in 2025. But many parliamentarians believe that the target amount should be 450 million euros, if we follow the financing method history of this fund, also based on the “CatNat surcharge”… and therefore on individual insurance contracts. “It’s almost like an unnamed tax, it’s like lying to policyholders,” Christine Lavarde told AFP, who promises to return to the subject during the fall budget debates. A “financial sleight of hand” also denounced by the environmental group of the National Assembly in a press release on Monday.
Several amendments closely affecting communities
Among the amendments adopted during the session which will be of interest to communities, the senators wanted to complete the composition of the interministerial commission for recognizing the state of natural disaster responsible for giving an opinion on each application file. Pointed out for its “lack of pluralism” by the SER senators, at the origin of the amendment – it includes only four directors general of the budget, overseas, civil security and the Treasury -, it will have to count “at at least two local mandate holders and two members representing disaster victims associations (…), like the National Consultative Commission for Natural Disasters which includes such representatives.”
Within one year following the promulgation of the law, the government must submit to parliament a report assessing the possibility of developing an administrative framework allowing an accelerated investigation procedure for repair work on the real estate of local authorities damaged by a natural disaster while promoting their reconstruction in a more resilient manner, proposes a senatorial amendment taking up one of the recommendations of the recent report of the fact-finding mission on the floods of 2023 and early 2024. Another amendment defended by SER senators aims to give local authorities the possibility of integrating the RGA risk into town planning documents. The same group of senators obtained the adoption of an amendment aimed at extending the natural disaster compensation regime to massive strandings of sargassum seaweed, a phenomenon which particularly affects the Antilles.
