Product Specification#

Status: Draft, 2026-08-26 (all cited sources accessed 2026-08-26).

Scope note. This is a standardized composite specification assembled for reference liability cash-flow modeling of French assurance emprunteur (ADE) — the death, disability and incapacity cover attached to a crédit immobilier. It does not describe any single insurer’s product. Facts carrying a source tag — [S#] (primary product documents: notice d’information, conditions générales, IPID/DIPA, brochures) and [R#] (regulatory/actuarial references), both numbered per _research/assurance-emprunteur.md — resolve against sources.md in this directory (numbering carried over verbatim; never renumbered). [REG-R#] tags resolve against the cross-product reference library references/regulatory-and-actuarial-references.md (its own frozen R1–R49 numbering). Values marked std are standardizations introduced for the reference implementation; each std table row carries a footnote giving the rationale and, where the research file recorded one, the observed range across insurers. Facts the research file could not verify are flagged unverified. French terms of art are kept in French and glossed on first use.

Product overview and market role#

Assurance emprunteur is the largest individual protection market in France and the most mechanically intricate product in this library. It pays the lender the capital restant dû (CRD — outstanding principal) on the borrower’s death, and the monthly loan échéance (instalment) while the borrower is unable to work; the beneficiary is normally the lender, up to the sums still owed. Three market regimes coexist and the regulator measures them separately. At 31 May 2023 the insured mortgage portfolios split 72.2 % contrat groupe bancaire (the lender’s own group policy, joined by adhesion), 4.4 % contrat alternatif bancaire, 16.0 % contrat alternatif externe (délégation d’assurance — an individual or association contract from an insurer unconnected to the lender), with 7.4 % of portfolios carrying no insurance at all R12. The sampled corpus covers two bank group policies [S10] [S13], four alternative external contracts [S1] [S2] [S5] [S9] [S11], and one individual term-life policy used as mortgage cover [S12]. The usual wrapper is a contrat d’assurance de groupe à adhésion facultative under arts. L. 141-1 ff. of the Code des assurances with an association or the bank as souscripteur [S1] [S9] [S10] [S11] [S13]; one sampled policy is written across branches 1, 2 and 20 of art. R. 321-1 — accident, sickness and life-death [S13], the exact regulatory signature of a combined death-plus-incapacity borrower cover. Coinsurance [S13] and delegated management [S1] [S9] [S11] are both normal.

Market size, on the only public measures retrieved: €11.8 bn of premiums in 2023, 85 % (€9 987 m) on bank group contracts and 15 % (€1 824 m) on délégation d’assurance; by loan type 67 % mortgage, 25 % consumer, 9 % professional; by guarantee 69 % death, 30 % incapacité-invalidité, 2 % unemployment REG-R37. A much narrower cut — the death guarantee only, of individually-underwritten contracts written by Code des assurances undertakings — shows 5 223 thousand contracts at end-2024, €979 m of premiums and €330 m of benefits, which is not a market total R18. Whole-market figures in secondary coverage of the CCSF’s 2024/2025 work are unverified: the December 2023 Bilan de l’assurance emprunteur to Parliament could not be retrieved R13.

The loi Lemoine (loi n° 2022-270 du 28 février 2022) rewrote the product’s behavioural economics: the borrower may cancel à tout moment from signature of the loan offer (art. 1) R1 R3 REG-R35, and no health questionnaire may be required where the insured share of the cumulative credit outstanding is ≤ €200 000 and the loan matures before the borrower’s 60th birthday (art. 10) R1 R2. Substitution requests received by banking networks rose from 99 265 in H1 2021 to 181 600 in H1 2023, more than 80 % R12.

The representative design specified below is a group contract paying the CRD on Décès and PTIA and the échéance on ITT and IPT, with a 90-day franchise, a 1 095-day ITT limit followed by an IPT assessment at a 66 % combined invalidity threshold, cover ending at 70 for the incapacity guarantees and at 85 for death, a per-head quotité of at most 100 %, and a level premium expressed as an annual rate on the capital initial × quotité — essentially the 2025 CNP group notice [S9] with the explicitly nivelé (levelled) rate design of one bank policy [S13]. Every other retrieved contract is a parameterisation of that skeleton. Three switches are configuration, not chassis, and are carried as model point columns: the IPT benefit base (CRD versus échéances) [S3] [S7] [S9]; the indemnity basis (forfaitaire versus indemnitaire) [S10] [S6]; and the premium base (capital initial versus capital restant dû) [S8] [S10].

Representative specification#

Product identity and issue rules#

Parameter	Representative value	Basis
Design type	Group borrower policy, adhésion facultative, arts. L. 141-1 ff. C. ass.; lender beneficiary up to the sums owed	[S1] [S9] [S10] [S11] [S13]
Market regime	Contrat groupe bancaire chassis, alternative-contract wording	72.2 % of portfolios R12; wording [S9]
Regulatory branches	1 (accident), 2 (maladie) and 20 (vie-décès) of art. R. 321-1 C. ass.	[S13]
Guarantee set	Décès + PTIA + ITT + IPT; IPP and perte d’emploi optional	[S1] [S9] [S10]; IPP optional [S5] [S9] [S10]
Insurable loan	Euro-denominated only; amortising, in fine (to 10 years) or relais (to 3 years)	[S9]; loan-type grid [S10]
Loan modelled here	Amortising, fixed nominal rate, principal residence	std (1)
Loan term band	1–35 years, extendable by 5 without exceeding 40	[S1] [S3]; 35 years [S9]
Entry ages	18 to before the 65th birthday for the full guarantee set	[S1] [S13]; to 64 [S6]
Quotité granularity	1 % steps from 1 % to 100 % per insured	[S9]; ≤100 % per head [S1] [S5] [S11]
Maximum insured encours	€5 000 000 per insured	[S9]; also [S12]
Medical formalities	None where the insured share of the cumulative credit encours ≤ €200 000 and repayment falls before the 60th birthday; otherwise a health questionnaire valid 6 months	R2 R1 art. 10 [S9]
Renonciation	30 calendar days	[S7] [S10] [S12]
Base model cell	Male, entry age 52, loan €200 000 at 3.00 % nominal over 240 months, quotité 100 %, franchise 90 days, level premium 0.84 %/yr of capital initial	std (1)

Footnotes to std rows:

Pure modeling cell, chosen so that every distinctive mechanic bites. Entry age 52 with a 20-year loan means the loan matures at attained age 72 while the ITT, IPT and PTIA guarantees end at 70 — the last 24 months of the loan carry death cover only, and the nivelé premium does not fall [S13]. It also means repayment falls after the 60th birthday, so the loi Lemoine questionnaire waiver does not apply R2 — which is the normal case: 58.5 % of borrowers had an insured amount below €200 000 but only 23 % of those contracts were eligible for the waiver, because lengthening loan terms push the repayment date past the 60th birthday R12. €200 000 insured at quotité 100 % sits exactly on the statutory ceiling R2, which makes the interaction explicit. No retrieved document publishes a standard-risk rate card, so the loan amount, term and rate are modeling picks. Fixed rate and principal residence are modeling narrowings too, not eligibility conditions: [S9] restricts the loan only to euro denomination and to the amortising / in fine / relais forms, and its garantie aide à la famille expressly contemplates a mortgage on a principal, a secondary or a rental residence, while [S10]’s loan-type grid carries a rental-investor column. The model wants one level échéance, which a fixed nominal rate gives it; residence type it does not use at all.

The loan and the capital restant dû#

Parameter	Representative value	Basis
Capital initial	€200 000 — the amount borrowed at the credit contract’s inception	definition [S9]; amount std (1)
Loan nominal annual rate	3.00 %, monthly rate = nominal ÷ 12	std (2)
Loan term	240 months (20 years)	std (1); band [S1] [S3] [S9]
Échéance	€1 109.20 per month, level, capital and interest	std (3)
Capital restant dû	The share of the borrowed capital still owed at a given date, read off the échéancier	[S9]; equivalent lexique [S1]
Capital assuré	capital initial × quotité	[S9]
Amortisation-schedule anti-gaming	An instalment increase at the borrower’s initiative in the 90 days before a claim is disregarded; a decrease applies immediately	[S9]; 180 days [S10]; 12 months [S1]

French loan documents quote a taux nominal annuel and the monthly rate is the nominal rate divided by twelve; the resulting annual effective rate is (1 + 0.03/12)^12 − 1 = 3.0416 %. No retrieved source states a loan rate — the sampled documents are insurance notices, not credit offers — so the rate is a modeling pick. The convention (nominal ÷ 12 rather than an effective-rate conversion) is a standardization; it is what makes the échéance below reproducible.
Derived, not assumed: échéance = capital initial × i / (1 − (1 + i)^(−n)) with i = 0.0025 and n = 240, giving €1 109.1952. The reference implementation computes the CRD schedule from these three inputs and never reads it from a table; every sampled contract instead reads the CRD off the lender’s échéancier [S1] [S5] [S9].

The guarantee set#

Guarantee	Trigger	Benefit	Cover ends at	Basis
Décès	Death from any cause (suicide excluded in year 1)	CRD × quotité, extinguishing all cover for that insured	85	benefit [S1] [S5] [S9] [S10] [S11]; age 85 [S9] [S11]; accrued interest added [S9] [S11]
PTIA — perte totale et irréversible d’autonomie	Definitive inability to engage in any remunerated occupation and permanent need of a third person for the ordinary acts of daily life	CRD × quotité, as an acceleration of Décès — never both	70	[S5] [S9] [S11]; 3-of-4 acts [S1] vs 4-of-4 [S5] [S9]
ITT — incapacité temporaire totale de travail	Temporary and complete inability, after illness or accident, to carry on his or her own occupation, after the franchise	échéance × quotité per month, for at most 1 095 days per claim	70	benefit [S1] [S9] [S11]; 1 095 days [S1] [S11] [S12]; age 70 [S9]
IPT — invalidité permanente totale	Combined invalidity rate ≥ 66 % at consolidation, on the barème croisé	échéance × quotité per month to the end of the loan or the age limit	70	≥66 % [S1] [S5] [S9] [S10] [S11] [S12]; instalment form [S5] [S9] [S11]
IPP — invalidité permanente partielle (option, not modeled)	Combined rate 33 % to below 66 %	50 % of the ITT benefit — or (N − 33)/33 × the benefit at other insurers	70	flat 50 % [S5] [S9] [S10]; ramp [S1] [S11]; band [S1] [S9] [S10] [S11]
Mi-temps thérapeutique (not modeled)	Medically prescribed part-time return to work	50 % of the benefit for at most 180 days — 6 months at the insurers that say so instead	70	180 days [S1] [S10] [S11] [S12]; 6 months [S5] [S7] [S9]; age 70 [S9]
Perte d’emploi (option, not modeled)	Redundancy giving entitlement to unemployment benefit	50 % of the insured instalments, capped €2 500/month, for up to 18 months after a 180-day carence and a 90-day franchise	61 at adhesion	[S1] [S3]; a second module pays from the 91st day, capped €3 500/month, 12 months per redundancy [S8]
Garantie aide à la famille (not modeled)	Insured stops work to care for a seriously ill child, drawing the AJPP	50 % of the ITT benefit, capped €4 000/month, at most 28 months	67	[S9]; market undertaking from July 2025 R12

ITT and IPT claim mechanics#

Parameter	Representative value	Basis
Franchise (deductible days)	90 continuous days	std (4); menu 30/60/90/120/180 [S9]
Maximum ITT indemnification	1 095 days (three years) per claim	[S1] [S11] [S12]; std as a universal rule (5)
ITT benefit	100 % of the échéance (capital and interest) read from the amortisation schedule at the claim date, × quotité	[S1] [S9] [S11]
Pro-rating	Whole instalments; no prorata temporis	[S13]; daily pro-rating at 1/30 elsewhere [S1]
Relapse	No new franchise where the interruption ran under 90 days	[S9] [S10]; 60 days [S1] [S12]; 2 months [S5]
IPT threshold	Combined rate ≥ 66 %, fixed at consolidation and at the latest three years after the start of the ITT	≥66 % [S1] [S5] [S9] [S10] [S11] [S12]; three-year rule [S10]
Barème croisé	Double-entry grid crossing a taux d’incapacité fonctionnelle with a taux d’incapacité professionnelle; for an insured with no occupation only the functional rate is used	[S1] [S5] [S9] [S10] [S11]; non-working rule [S9] [S10] [S11]
Combined-rate formula	N = (IF² × IP)^(1/3)	std (6)
Indemnity basis	Forfaitaire — the insured instalment is paid whatever the employer or the compulsory scheme pays	[S1] [S3] [S6] [S11]; indemnitaire alternative [S10]
Monthly benefit cap	€10 000 per month per insured across all loans	[S1]; €25 000 [S6] [S7]
Claim notification	ITT file within 90 days of the end of the franchise	[S9]; 6 months [S1]; 30 days [S12]
Independence from social security	The contract’s invalidity notion is independent of the social-security notion	[S1]; mandatory FSI statement since 1 June 2022 R10; contrary design [S13]

Observed franchise menus: 30/60/90/180 [S1] [S2]; 30/60/90/120/180 [S9]; benefit from the 31st/61st/91st/181st day [S5]; 30/60/90/180 with 90/180 restricted to the non-working and to DROM/EU/EEA/UK residents [S6] [S7]; 90 standard with 30 as a priced option [S10]; 90 or 180 only [S13]; a single fixed 90 [S11]; 15/30/60/90/180 [S12]. The CCSF criteria list offers lenders the boxes ≤30 / ≤60 / ≤90 / ≤120 / ≤180 days R11. 90 days is the modal standard and the only value present in every menu.
The 1 095-day cap is explicit at three sampled insurers [S1] [S2] [S11] [S12], but is not universal: two others end ITT at consolidation with no stated day cap [S5] [S9], and a third fixes consolidation “au plus tard trois ans après le début de son Incapacité Temporaire Totale” [S10] — which reaches the same three years from the other side. The composite adopts 1 095 days as a hard cap and treats consolidation as occurring there; a model that hard-codes it for every carrier would misstate the consolidation-based wordings.
A fitted reconstruction, not a quotation. N = (IF² × IP)^(1/3) reproduces every printed cell of both retrieved barème croisé grids [S1] [S9] and both of their worked examples (IF 40 %, IP 80 % → 50.40 % [S1]; IF 50 %, IP 40 % → 46 % [S9]), but neither contract states it. Where an exact match matters, ship the published grid rather than the formula.

Premiums#

Parameter	Representative value	Basis
Premium base	Annual rate applied to the capital initial × quotité, level for the whole term	[S9] [S11] [S13]; alternative CRD base [S2] [S7] [S8] [S10]
Representative rate	0.84 % per year of capital initial	std (7)
Monthly premium	€140.00, payable monthly in advance	std (7); frequency [S1] [S9] [S11] [S12]
Levelling	The rate is nivelé over the loan term, so the cessation of the PTIA/ITT/IPT guarantees at the age limit does not reduce the premium	[S13]
Tariff drivers	Age at adhesion, loan term, loan type, guarantees and options including the chosen franchise; elsewhere also occupation, smoker status and declared medical and sporting risks	[S9]; wider list [S1] [S11]; unisex tariff at one insurer [S3]
Premium guarantee	Net-of-tax premium guaranteed for the whole term; revised downward on a risk-reducing change of life habits	[S1]; level for the term [S11]
Waiver during claim	Premiums waived (or advanced and refunded) throughout an ITT/IPT/IPP claim	[S11] [S5]; refund mechanics [S1] [S9]
Partial early repayment	Premium rebased on the guaranteed CRD less the amount repaid	[S9] [S10]; on the original capital elsewhere [S1]
Non-payment	Group contract: exclusion 40 days after formal notice, art. L. 141-3 C. ass.	[S9] [S10]; individual contracts follow art. L. 113-3 [S1] [S5]
File fee	€10 one-off at one insurer; not in the composite	[S1] [S3]

No retrieved document publishes a standard-risk rate card, and none publishes a TAEA figure. The only public price point in the corpus is an aggravated-risk average: for the 18 569 borrowers whose premiums were capped under the AERAS écrêtement in 2023 (average age 46.4, average insured capital €82 700, average term 18.1 years), the average insurance rate was 1.01 % of initial capital before écrêtement and 0.65 % after REG-R37. Those are aggravated lives, so 1.01 % bounds a standard rate from above rather than describing it. The composite’s 0.84 %/yr is a modeling pick inside that bound, chosen so that its present value over the base cell equals, to 0.11 %, that of the CRD-based alternative scale in technical-notes.md — see the Worked example. It is not an insurer’s rate and carries no pricing authority.

Cost disclosure — TAEA and the fiche standardisée#

Parameter	Representative value	Basis
TAEA definition	TAEG computed assuming the proposed insurance is entirely required, minus the TAEG computed assuming no insurance is required, both under arts. R. 314-1 to R. 314-10	R6
Base cell TAEA	1.40 percentage points (loan TAEG 3.0416 % without insurance, 4.4381 % with)	std (8)
Cost per instalment period	€140.00, added to the loan échéance (total monthly outlay €1 249.20)	R4 L. 313-8; amount std (7)
Total cost over the first 8 years	€13 440.00	duty R4 R10 REG-R36; amount std (8)
Total cost over the full loan term	€33 600.00	duty R4 REG-R36; amount std (8)
Fiche standardisée d’information (FSI)	Handed at the first costed simulation for a loan above €75 000 secured by a mortgage on residential property, to each borrower and co-borrower separately	R4 L. 313-10, R5 R. 313-10 [S4]
FSI content	Guarantee definitions; the lender’s minimum required guarantees with a required quotité box for each of Décès, PTIA, ITT, IPT, IPP and perte d’emploi; the guarantees chosen with their quotité; the personalised cost estimate; notice of the right to insure elsewhere	R5 R. 313-9, R9; model annexed to the code R19
FSI additions since 1 June 2022	The eight-year cost total; a statement that the invalidity guarantee is independent of the social-security notion of invalidity; the medical-questionnaire exemption; the switching right	R10

Computed from the base cell’s own cash flows, not taken from a document. The TAEA is the difference of two internal rates of return on the credit’s cash flows R6: the monthly IRR of 240 payments of €1 109.1952 against €200 000 is exactly 0.25 %/month (3.0416 % annual effective), and adding €140.00 to each payment raises it to 0.3625 %/month (4.4381 % annual effective), a difference of 1.3965 percentage points. The eight-year and full-term totals are 96 × €140.00 and 240 × €140.00. No filled-in FSI was retrieved, so no published TAEA exists in the corpus to check these against.

Contractual mechanics#

The amortising loan and the CRD#

The loan is the spine of the product and everything else is read off it. With capital initial C, monthly rate i = taux nominal / 12 and term n months, the échéance is

ech = C x i / (1 - (1 + i)^(-n))

and the CRD immediately after the k-th instalment is

CRD(k) = ech x (1 - (1 + i)^(-(n - k))) / i,    k = 0..n,  CRD(0) = C,  CRD(n) = 0

equivalently CRD(k) = CRD(k−1) × (1 + i) − ech. Contractually this schedule is the lender’s échéancier and the insurer reads the CRD off it [S1] [S5] [S9]; the reference model computes it, so the loan is three numbers rather than a table. Deferred-capital and in fine loans, where only the interest instalments are covered and the final capital instalment is never indemnified [S1] [S5] [S9] [S10], are out of scope.

Décès and PTIA#

Décès pays the CRD weighted by the quotité; the wordings differ on the exact cut — the CRD shown on the amortisation table the day after the instalment immediately preceding death, plus interest accrued since that instalment, with an instalment falling on the day of death deemed due [S9]; the same, capped at the CRD at the date of death [S11]; the CRD shown on the échéancier at the date of death [S1]. Payment of the death capital ends every guarantee for that insured [S1]. PTIA is assimilated to death and pays the same benefit [S5] [S9] [S11]; its definition is consistent everywhere — definitive inability to engage in any remunerated occupation and permanent need of a third person for the ordinary acts of daily life — but the acts test is not, requiring assistance for at least three of the four acts (se laver, se vêtir, se nourrir, se déplacer) at one insurer [S1] against all four at two others [S5] [S9]. Evidence normally required is category 3 social-security invalidity for scheme members [S1] [S11].

PTIA and Décès are never both paid: PTIA accelerates the death capital. They nevertheless have different cover-end ages — 85 for Décès against 70 for PTIA in the composite [S9] [S11] — so they cannot be collapsed into one decrement.

ITT — franchise, benefit, duration#

Benefit begins on the day after the franchise of F continuous days of total incapacity and is the échéance × quotité per month [S1] [S9] [S11]; the composite takes F = 90 days. A relapse does not restart the franchise where the return to work ran under 90 days [S9] [S10]. Payment ends on the earliest of: return to work even part-time (except a therapeutic part-time), retirement or pre-retirement, consolidation, the age ceiling, recognition of PTIA/IPT/IPP, and exhaustion of the 1 095 days [S1] [S9] [S11]. Statutory maternity leave is expressly not indemnified [S5]. The composite pays whole instalments and does not prorate — “Le contrat ne prévoit pas de prise en charge prorata temporis” [S13]; other insurers prorate by days at 1/30, 1/90 or 1/360 [S1], or decompose non-monthly instalments into equal monthly ones [S11].

IPT — threshold, barème croisé and the two benefit forms#

IPT requires a combined invalidity rate ≥ 66 % at consolidation, plus, in most wordings, permanent inability to carry on the occupation practised at the date of the claim [S1] [S5] [S9] [S10] [S11] [S12]. The combined rate comes from a double-entry grid crossing a taux d’incapacité fonctionnelle (assessed on the barème de droit commun du concours médical, without regard to occupation) with a taux d’incapacité professionnelle (assessed on the occupation practised before the event, disregarding retraining) [S1] [S5] [S9] [S10] [S11]; for an insured with no occupation at the claim date only the functional rate is used [S9] [S10] [S11]. Consolidation is what converts ITT into IPT, and one bank contract fixes it explicitly — the rate is set at consolidation and at the latest three years after the start of the ITT [S10], the same three years as the 1 095-day cap elsewhere [S1] [S11] [S12]; the composite therefore treats duration 1 095 days as a forced assessment point.

The IPT benefit base is the single biggest structural difference in the product: the CRD (“IPT en capital”), paid at the medical recognition of IPT and ending every guarantee for that insured [S1] [S2] [S7]; the échéances (“IPT en rente”), identical to the ITT benefit and running to the end of the loan or the age limit [S5] [S7] [S9] [S11]; the insured’s choice between the two [S3]; or no IPT at all, in one narrow bank group policy carrying Décès, PTIA, invalidité AERAS and ITT only [S13]. The composite takes the rente form; the crd form is a model point switch, not a different model — it converts IPT from an annuity into a single payment that extinguishes cover.

Forfaitaire versus indemnitaire#

Forfaitaire: the benefit is the contractually insured instalment, paid whatever the employer or the compulsory scheme pays. Indemnitaire: the benefit is capped by the actual income loss, so an insured whose salary is fully maintained receives nothing [S6]. Death and PTIA are always effectively forfaitaire against the CRD; the distinction bites only on ITT, IPT, IPP and perte d’emploi. Four sampled contracts are forfaitaire by design [S1] [S3] [S6] [S11] [S12]; one bank group policy is indemnitaire by default and forfaitaire by option, and its four-way rule is the clearest statement of the mechanic in the corpus [S10]:

Category	ITT/IPT benefit
Self-employed, non-civil-servant; or Swiss-franc loan	100 % of the monthly instalment (insurance premium included), pro-rated by days, × quotité
Non-working and drawing no unemployment benefit	50 % of the monthly instalment, same basis
Employee, civil servant, or jobseeker drawing benefit	instalment × quotité, but limited to the income loss
Anyone holding the Prestation Forfaitaire option	100 % of the monthly instalment

The income loss is defined contractually: revenu de référence (average monthly net taxable income and allowances over the 12 months before the stoppage) less revenu de remplacement (all benefits owed by social security, the employer and any prévoyance scheme, recomputed at the claim date on the reference income), the reference income being revalued by the published private-sector wage index after three consecutive years of claim [S10]. The CCSF criteria list makes the forfaitaire basis an explicitly selectable lender requirement and tells lenders to state the required value, “par exemple son caractère forfaitaire ou indemnitaire” R11.

Quotité and the anti-duplication rule#

The quotité is the percentage of the borrowed capital insured on one life, chosen on the adhesion form, and it applies to every guarantee of that insured’s cover [S1] [S9] [S11]. Per insured it may not exceed 100 % [S1] [S5] [S9] [S11], in 1 % steps [S9]. Across co-borrowers the total may exceed 100 %: on a €100 000 loan a borrower at 100 % and a co-borrower at 40 % means the insurer pays 100 % of the CRD or instalment on the first life and 40 % on the second [S9]; other retrieved examples are 80 %/60 % [S1] and 60 %/40 % [S3]. Raising a quotité mid-contract requires fresh underwriting [S9].

Two rules bound the total. The 200 % ceiling follows arithmetically from the per-head 100 % cap. The 100 % floor is not a contract term — no retrieved notice imposes one; it is a lender requirement expressed through the FSI’s “garanties minimales exigées par le prêteur” block and the CCSF fiche personnalisée R9 R11, so the assertion that “the total must be at least 100 %” is unverified as an insurance-contract rule. Anti-duplication is explicit: the contract “ne peut, en aucune façon, donner lieu à une indemnisation supérieure à 100 % en cas de sinistres concomitants ou non pour deux assurés d’un même contrat de prêt” [S1] [S12]; a third contract caps the total paid on one loan at the CRD [S11].

Guarantee-specific age limits#

Every guarantee has its own cover-end age, and they differ by up to twenty years:

Guarantee	Composite	Observed range
Décès	85	75 [S13] · 80 [S10] · 85 [S5] [S6] [S9] [S11] · 90 [S1] [S7]
PTIA	70	65 [S13] · 65 extendable to 70 [S1] · 67 [S10] · 70 [S5] [S9] [S11] · 71 [S7]
ITT / IPT / IPP	70	65 [S13] · 65 or 70 by option [S1] · 67 [S10] [S11] · 70 [S5] [S9] · 71 [S6]

Every incapacity and invalidity guarantee also ends on retirement or pre-retirement, however early, unless the retirement itself results from the indemnified state [S1] [S9] [S10] [S11]. A cover that ends before the loan does is a real and under-modelled feature. In the base cell the loan matures at attained age 72 while the ITT, IPT and PTIA guarantees end at 70, so the last 24 months of the loan carry Décès only — and, because the rate is nivelé, the premium is unchanged: “Le taux de prime a été nivelé sur la durée du prêt ; par conséquent, la cessation de ces garanties n’a pas d’incidence sur le montant de la prime” [S13]. The CCSF found 50 %–75 % of claim declines by external alternative insurers were mis-declarations — wrong insurer, claim inside the franchise, or the maximum cover age already passed R12.

Résiliation à tout moment (loi Lemoine)#

The borrower may cancel the insurance at any time from signature of the loan offer defined in art. L. 313-24 of the Code de la consommation, by registered letter or registered electronic mail R3 R1 art. 1 REG-R35. In force 1 June 2022 for new loan offers and 1 September 2022 for contracts already running R1 art. 8. The mechanics:

The lender may not refuse a substitute contract presenting an equivalent level of guarantee; any refusal must be explicit and state every reason, naming the missing information and guarantees R7 R1 art. 2 REG-R36.
The lender answers within a délai de dix jours ouvrés and amends the credit contract without additional fees, restating the TAEG R8 L. 313-31, R1 art. 5; it may not change the loan rate or the credit conditions, nor charge any fee including analysis fees R8 L. 313-32.
Cancellation takes effect ten days after the insurer receives the lender’s acceptance, or on the substitute contract’s effective date if later; on refusal the contract is not cancelled R3, and the 2025 group notice implements exactly this [S9].
The insurer owes an annual reminder of the cancellation right, with fines of €3 000 for individuals and €15 000 for legal persons R1 art. 3; insurance information must be retained eight years R1 art. 4.

Equivalence is assessed against the CCSF liste de place: the lender selects at most 11 of 18 criteria, plus at most 4 of the 8 on perte d’emploi, must state the required value wherever possible, must publish its list on its website and on the FSIs it issues, and must hand the borrower a fiche personnalisée with the fully valued list before the loan offer R11 [S3] [S4]. Two earlier regimes survive in older wordings and are not the composite: a 12-month window from signature of the loan offer with notice 15 days before its end [S1] [S6], and an annual right at each loan-offer anniversary with two months’ notice [S1] — the attribution of that annual right to the 2017 amendement Bourquin is unverified, the statute not having been retrieved. Professional-loan adhesions are excluded from the à tout moment right, which is tied to art. L. 313-1 1° credits R3 [S1].

Underwriting, exclusions and the droit à l’oubli#

Where the questionnaire waiver does not apply, a health questionnaire is required, valid 6 months [S9], with laboratory tests and possibly a medical examination at the insurer’s expense; the outcome is acceptance at standard terms, acceptance with a surprime and/or guarantee restrictions the member countersigns, or refusal [S1]. Non-disclosure sanctions are the general ones — nullity for intentional misstatement (art. L. 113-8), proportional benefit reduction for good-faith misstatement (art. L. 113-9) [S1] [S9].

Droit à l’oubli. No past cancer or hepatitis C need be declared where the end of the therapeutic protocol is more than five years old and there has been no relapse; cover is then granted with no surcharge and no exclusion for that history, where the contract’s term falls before the borrower’s 71st birthday R17. The five-year cap is statutory R16 R1 art. 9 REG-R35. The grille de référence AERAS applies where the insured share does not exceed €420 000 (per operation for a principal residence, otherwise on the cumulative outstanding) and the term falls before the 71st birthday; list I sets shorter delays after which standard terms apply, list II sets maximum surcharge rates by guarantee R17. The grid itself was not retrieved; its pathology-by-pathology delays must not be invented.

The two commercially decisive exclusions are affections disco-vertébrales (back) and affections psychiatriques, both normally excluded unless hospitalisation thresholds are met, and both routinely bought back by a priced option [S1] [S3] [S5] [S6] [S9] [S12]. Other standard exclusions: intentional acts including attempted suicide; suicide in the first year; undeclared prior conditions except where the droit à l’oubli applies; narcotics; drunk driving; nuclear effects; excluded sports [S1] [S7].

Riders and options#

In scope (modeled). The ITT → IPT transition, as a competing exit from the ITT state at the claim duration and at the 1 095-day assessment [S1] [S10] [S11]; premium waiver during claim [S5] [S11], as zero premium income from lives in claim; and three switches carried as model point columns — the premium base, level on capital initial [S9] [S11] [S13] versus annually re-read on the CRD at the attained age [S2] [S5] [S7] [S8]; the indemnity basis, forfaitaire [S1] [S3] [S6] [S11] versus indemnitaire [S10]; and the IPT benefit form, échéances [S5] [S9] [S11] versus CRD [S1] [S2] [S7].

Out of scope (documented, no cash flows projected): perte d’emploi [S1] [S3] [S8] — a separate module with its own carence, franchise, eligibility and duration limits and its own eight CCSF criteria R11; IPP and every partial benefit below the 66 % IPT threshold [S1] [S5] [S9] [S10] [S11]; mi-temps thérapeutique [S1] [S9] [S10] [S11] [S12]; garantie aide à la famille [S9] R12; garantie invalidité spécifique / invalidité AERAS [S1] [S6] [S9] [S13]; option Prévoyance, covering the uninsured quotité for a beneficiary of the member’s choosing [S1] [S5] [S6]; exclusion buy-backs [S1] [S5] [S6] [S9] [S12]; medical-professions invalidity [S5] [S12]; the extension-to-70 options [S1] [S6] [S7]; provisional accidental-death cover during underwriting [S1] [S12]; the free €1 000 return-to-work lump sum [S1]; and multi-head aggregation across co-borrowers [S1] [S9].

Variations across insurers#

Indemnity basis. Forfaitaire dominates the alternative-contract segment [S1] [S3] [S6] [S11] [S12]; one bank group policy is indemnitaire by default with a priced forfaitaire option and a fully specified income-loss definition [S10] — the difference between a benefit that is a fixed instalment and one that is a function of the claimant’s employment contract and prévoyance cover.
IPT benefit base. CRD [S1] [S2], échéances [S5] [S9] [S11], the insured’s choice [S3] [S7], or no IPT at all [S13].
IPP benefit shape. A linear ramp (N − 33)/33 capped at 100 % [S1] [S11] — which meets IPT continuously at N = 66 % — against a flat 50 % of the ITT benefit anywhere in the band [S5] [S9] [S10]: materially different liability profiles for the same medical state.
Franchise menus and the ITT day cap. Menus run from a single fixed 90 days [S11] to 15/30/60/90/180 [S12]; the 1 095-day cap is explicit at three insurers [S1] [S11] [S12] and absent at two others, which end ITT at consolidation [S5] [S9] — see footnote 5.
Premium base. Level on capital initial [S9] [S11] [S13]; annually re-read on the CRD and the attained age [S2] [S5] [S7] [S8]; both offered [S10]. One contract states the nivelé design in terms and draws the consequence [S13].
Age limits. See the table above; the spread on Décès alone is 75 to 90.
ITT trigger. “Own occupation” is the mainstream definition [S1] [S9] [S11] [S12]; one bank group policy instead anchors ITT to social security — a general-scheme member is in ITT only if actually drawing sickness or accident cash benefits, or classified in category 2 or 3 invalidity under art. L. 341-4 of the Code de la sécurité sociale [S13] — while another states expressly that its assessment “n’est pas liée à la décision de la Sécurité sociale” [S1], the warning the FSI model has carried since 1 June 2022 R10. The PTIA acts test likewise splits three-of-four [S1] against four-of-four [S5] [S9].
Structural outlier. One sampled product is a true individual branch-20 term-life contract used as mortgage cover: the death benefit is a capital garanti stated in the conditions particulières rather than the lender’s CRD, the lender is beneficiary only “à concurrence des sommes restant dues”, ITT is paid as fixed daily indemnities, and IPT pays the death capital [S12]. It needs a scheduled-sum-insured chassis, not a CRD chassis.
Sampling caveat. Crédit Agricole — reported as one of the three largest writers of the risk unverified — is missing: its group notice returned HTTP 502 and was never read [S14]. Generali, Suravenir, MNCAP, AFI-ESCA and Swiss Life were not sampled at all, and the contrat alternatif bancaire segment (4.4 % of portfolios R12) has no document in the corpus.

Regulatory context#

Prudential (ACPR / Solvabilité II). ADE liabilities are valued as a best estimate — the probability-weighted average of future cash flows discounted at the relevant risk-free term structure — plus a risk margin, under Solvabilité II as transposed into the Code des assurances REG-R4, with the curves published monthly by EIOPA REG-R5. The French statutory balance sheet carries its own eleven technical provisions under art. R. 343-3, of which the provision mathématique and the provision pour égalisation for mortality fluctuations on group death business are the ones an ADE book touches REG-R6; supervision is by the ACPR REG-R10. No reserving or prudential source specific to this product was retrieved: the nivelé design is stated in a contract [S13] and follows from the tariff structures elsewhere [S1] [S9] [S11], but nothing retrieved establishes how a French insurer reserves the resulting increasing-risk pattern, and everything about that is unverified here. No ACPR document on assurance emprunteur was obtained at all — the whole banque-france.fr estate refused automated fetches in the research pass (see the provenance note in sources.md), so no statement about ACPR expectations is made anywhere in these documents.

Mortality basis. Death and PTIA sit on the non-annuity homologated tables TH 00-02 (male) and TF 00-02 (female), homologated by the arrêté du 20 décembre 2005 for “contrats autres que de rente viagère” REG-R22, applied with the décalage d’âge (age shift) schedules annexed to art. A. 335-1 of the Code des assurances, which permits exactly two kinds of table — homologated tables by sex, or the undertaking’s own tables d’expérience certified by an independent approved actuary REG-R23. Neither is redistributable here; the decrement CSVs this library ships are std proxies built from INSEE population data REG-R24.

Conduct. Distribution follows the DDA as transposed by ordonnance n° 2018-361 and décret n° 2018-431, in force 1 October 2018 REG-R32, the IPID/DIPA being the retail disclosure [S7]. The product-specific layer is the Code de la consommation: L. 313-8, the three mandatory cost presentations R4 REG-R36; L. 313-10 and R. 313-8 to R. 313-10, the FSI R4 R5 R19, on the model annexed by the arrêté du 29 avril 2015 R9 as amended by the arrêté du 27 mai 2022 R10; and L. 313-29 to L. 313-32, the notice in the credit contract, the ten-working-day answer and the no-fee, no-rate-change rules R8. The CCSF avis of 13 janvier 2015 supplies the equivalence method and the liste de place R11.

Aggravated risks. The AERAS convention and art. L. 1141-5 of the Code de la santé publique govern the droit à l’oubli and the grille de référence R16 R17. In 2023, 2.9 million loan-insurance applications were assessed, of which 7.6 % (224 068) presented a risque aggravé de santé, down from 9.6 % in 2022 and 12.1 % in 2021 — a fall attributed to the loi Lemoine questionnaire removal and the five-year droit à l’oubli; 94.5 % of those received an offer covering at least death, and, excluding files sent to the very-high-risk pool, offers with no surprime and no exclusion ran at death 65 %, PTIA 87 %, incapacité-invalidité 51 % REG-R37.

Actuarial standards and accounting. French actuarial work on this product sits under the Institut des actuaires’ normes de pratique actuarielle — NPA 1 on general practice REG-R43 and NPA 2 on actuarial models, which expressly covers pricing and the technical studies attached to new products REG-R44; both are category-3 pratiques recommandées from which a departing member must be able to explain why. IFRS 17 applies to IFRS-reporting French insurers REG-R45; its fulfilment-cash-flow engine consumes the same projections with its own discounting, risk adjustment and CSM layers (cited-not-specified).

Tax. No tax source was retrieved. Premiums are quoted taxes-included [S11] and two insurers provide for premium changes on a change of tax rates [S1] [S5], but the applicable taxe spéciale sur les conventions d’assurance treatment of the death versus the incapacity/invalidity components was not established. Treat any tax rate as unverified; the reference model carries none.