Product Specification#

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

Scope note. This is a standardized composite specification assembled for reference liability cash-flow modeling of a French contrat d'assurance vie multisupport in its unit-linked dimension — savings expressed in unités de compte (UC, units of a designated fund) alongside a fonds en euros (the insurer’s guaranteed general-account fund). It does not describe any single insurer’s product. Facts carrying a source tag — [S#] (primary product documents: notice d'information, conditions générales, document d'informations clés) and [R#] (regulatory/actuarial references), both numbered per _research/assurance-vie-uc.md — resolve against sources.md in this directory; [REG-R#] resolves against the cross-product reference library references/regulatory-and-actuarial-references.md (its own frozen R-numbering). Values marked std are standardizations introduced for the reference implementation; each std table row carries a numbered 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.

The implementation anchor for mechanics is the Generali/Spirica shape — an individual multisupport contract with one euro support and a set of UC supports, a UC management charge levied periodically by cancelling units, and an optional, age-rated garantie plancher charged on the capital sous risque — because it is the only design for which a public age tariff exists in more than one insurer’s documents [S1] [S3] [S4] [S7]. The flat-charge automatic-floor family [S10] [S11] [S12] [S13] is a special case of the same recursion and is specified under Variations.

The euro leg is a pointer, not a second implementation. This document specifies the euro support only as an allocation share carrying a credited rate, because that is all the UC model needs: the euro balance sizes the capital sous risque and is the first source from which the garantie plancher premium is levied. The fonds en euros mechanics — taux minimum garanti, participation aux bénéfices, the provision pour participation aux bénéfices and the effet cliquet — belong to products/assurance_vie_euro/ and are neither restated nor re-implemented here.

Product overview and market role#

A contrat multisupport is a single life insurance contract whose savings are split, at the policyholder’s election, between a fonds en euros and one or more supports en unités de compte, with free or cheap switching (arbitrage) between them [S1] [S3] [S4] [S7] [S10] [S12] [S13]. Some contracts add a third leg, eurocroissance engagements giving rise to a provision de diversification [S2] [S4] [S11] REG-R19; that leg belongs to products/eurocroissance/ and is out of scope here.

The UC leg is where the French market has grown. In 2025 UC premiums were 75.1 bn €, 39.1% of all life premiums and up 13.2%; UC benefits paid were 32.6 bn €; net UC inflow was 42.5 bn €, the highest on record; and UC provisions mathématiques closed the year at 666.4 bn €, up 13.5% R13 REG-R48. That is about 32% of total assurance vie encours, thirteen points above 2005, against 68% still on euro supports R14. Aggregate UC performance in 2025 was +5.5%, gross of contract charges and net of fund charges, with a five-year average of +4.9% a year R13.

The legal foundation is art. L. 131-1 al. 2 of the Code des assurances: the guaranteed capital or annuity may be expressed in unités de compte made of securities or assets offering sufficient protection of the invested savings and appearing on a list set by decree in Conseil d’État R1. The rule that actually drives the model, though, is a disclosure obligation rather than L. 131-1 itself: art. A. 132-5 requires the information document to state that the insurer “ne s’engage que sur le nombre d’unités de compte, mais pas sur leur valeur”, and that the unit value reflects underlying assets, is not guaranteed, and fluctuates with the markets R2. Every retrieved contract reproduces that sentence, several in a box or in bold [S1] [S3] [S4 art. 17.1.1] [S7] [S10 ART 9.A] [S13 art. 32.5]. The consequence is mechanical and total: the state variable is a unit count, not a euro amount, every contract charge on UC is applied by cancelling units, and the account value is units × liquidation value.

Against that background the product’s only real insurance content is the garantie plancher — a floor death benefit that pays at least the premiums invested if the units have fallen. It is where the mortality risk, the market risk and the option cost of the contract all live, and it is why this product needs a liability model rather than a spreadsheet of fund-based charges.

Representative specification#

Contract identity and issue rules#

Parameter	Representative value	Basis
Design type	Individual multisupport savings contract (`contrat d'assurance sur la vie individuel multisupport`), whole of life, no fixed term	[S1] [S4] [S7]; whole-of-life choice std (1)
Legal basis for the UC leg	Art. L. 131-1 al. 2 C. ass.; eligible supports per R. 131-1 borrowing the R. 332-2 asset classes	R1 R3 R4
The guarantee actually given	The insurer commits on the number of units, not their value — mandatory statement under art. A. 132-5	R2; reproduced in [S1] [S3] [S4 art. 17.1.1] [S7] [S10 ART 9.A] [S13 art. 32.5]
Legal form	Individual contract; the group form with individual membership (`contrat collectif à adhésion facultative`) is a variation	individual [S1] [S4] [S7]; group [S3] [S10] [S11] [S12] [S13]; choice std (1)
Lives assured	Single life; joint first-death and second-death designs excluded	designs [S1] [S3] [S4]; exclusion std (2)
Issue ages	18 to 85	maximum 85 at membership [S10 ART 4B]; lower bound std (3)
Minimum initial premium	500 €	[S6]; observed 100 € [S7] [S8] to 500 € [S6]
Premium pattern modeled	Single premium at issue; `versements libres` and `versements programmés` exist and are excluded from the base projection	availability [S1] [S4] [S7]; exclusion std (4)
Recommended holding period	8 years	[S5] [S12]
Renonciation	30 calendar days from the date the subscriber is informed the contract is concluded; all sums repaid within 30 days	REG-R29 [S4] [S5] [S10] [S12]
Unit conversion precision	Four decimal places (`au dix millième`)	[S13 art. 32.2]; published tables carry four to five decimals [S3 art. 21] [S4 art. 17] [S7]
Anchor model cell	Male, age 65, single premium 100,000 €, 70% UC / 30% euro, `garantie plancher` elected on the `simple` basis	std (5)

Footnotes to std rows:

Contracts are commonly written viagère (whole of life) with an option for a fixed term [S4 art. 4] [S7]; PRO BTP writes an initial 8 years tacitly renewed [S12] [S13] and Suravenir a minimum of 8 years and a maximum of 85 less the policyholder’s age [S7]. Whole of life makes the projection horizon a decrement problem rather than a contractual one. The individual form is chosen over the group form because the group form adds one degree of freedom that matters only for tariff renegotiation — MACSF may revise the plancher rate “en cas de modification de la composition démographique du groupe et en fonction des résultats techniques de la garantie” [S10 ART 8.D].
Joint-life plancher pricing is published: on a first-death contract the two lives’ premiums are added, on a second-death contract the lower is charged [S1] [S3] [S4]. A single life keeps one attained age in the tariff lookup; enabling joint lives changes the lookup, not the recursion.
Only the upper bound is sourced (85 at membership [S10 ART 4B]). The plancher rider has its own tighter age gate — over 12 and under 75 [S1] [S3] [S4], 12 to under 70 [S7] — specified below.
Minimum subsequent premiums observed: 100 € for a versement libre with 25 € per support, 25 € per versement programmé [S7]. Excluding them keeps the floor base and the UC cost basis single-tranche; a later premium adds to cum_prem_net and to the UC cost basis on the same date, with no change to the recursion.
Pure modeling choice. Age 65 sits where the published tariff is material (196 € a year per 10,000 € of capital sous risque at Spirica [S4], 1.96% p.a. of the net amount at risk) while leaving ten years before the age-75 cessation; 100,000 € sits inside every observed premium band; the 70/30 split is the mirror image of the 70% euro / 30% UC split Generali uses in its own statutory illustration [S3 art. 21].

Supports and allocation#

Parameter	Representative value	Basis
UC universe	`OPC` (SICAV/FCP), `OPC indiciels` (ETF), `Actions` (direct equities), real-estate UC (SCPI, SCI, OPCI), private-equity and structured supports	[S1] [S3 art. 9] [S4] [S7] [S10 ART 9.A]; statutory eligibility R3 R4
Suitability gate on FIA supports	Required on alternative-fund and financing-vehicle units unless the fund is a retail ELTIF or the contract is under an arbitrage mandate	R5
Mandatory offering	At least one UC holding 5%–15% of ESS / venture-capital securities, and at least one UC per State-recognised green or SRI label, with disclosure of the qualifying proportion	R6
UC supports modeled	One composite UC support	std (6)
Euro support	One `fonds en euros`, modeled as an allocation share with a credited rate net of its own management charge; mechanics in `products/assurance_vie_euro/technical-notes.md`	scope std (7)
Base allocation	70% UC / 30% euro of the net premium	std (5)
Support-level rules not modeled	Real-estate concentration cap of 60% per premium or arbitrage [S13 art. 32.6]; reinvestment of distributed income into the support, increasing the unit count [S13 art. 32.3] [S4]; substitution of a support that disappears R3 III [S7]; redemption gating under arts. R. 131-8 to R. 131-12 R7	std (6)

The reference model collapses the fund menu to one composite UC support with an exogenous liquidation value. The concentration cap [S13 art. 32.6], the bid/offer spreads on Actions and ETF [S4], reinvested distributions [S13 art. 32.3] and the gating rules R7 all need support-level modeling, and none of them changes the shape of the liability — they change the path of one input. The garantie plancher is contract-level in every retrieved design except Afer’s, which computes it support by support against a running average cost price (see Variations), so a single-support model is exact for the composite and an approximation for Afer.
Deliberate scope boundary, restated from the scope note. euro_credit_rate is the annual rate credited to the euro support net of the euro management charge, because that is the rate French insurers publish and the rate the euro model produces. The euro leg therefore contributes no margin line here; reading net_cf as the contract’s total margin is a modeling error and is listed as such in the technical notes.

Charges#

Parameter	Representative value	Basis
`Frais sur versement` (premium charge)	1.00% of each premium, deducted before allocation	level std (8)
UC `frais de gestion sur encours`	0.88% p.a. of the UC savings, levied monthly by cancelling units	level std (9); levy mechanics [S7] [S13 art. 32.4]
Euro `frais de gestion`	0.66% p.a., embedded in `euro_credit_rate`	level std (9)
`Frais d'arbitrage`	0.50% of the amount switched	[S13]; level std (10)
`Gestion pilotée` surcharge	+0.29% p.a. on UC; off in the base cell	R13; level std (11)
Fund-level recurring costs inside the UC	1.60% p.a., borne within the fund — not insurer income	R13; use as a model input std (12)
Exit charge on surrender or death	Nil	[S1] [S3] [S4] [S7] [S10] [S11] [S13]
Charges not modeled	Annuity instalment charge 3% [S7] [S13]; insurer bid/offer spreads ±0.60% on `Actions` and ±0.10% on ETF [S4] [S7]; automatic-arbitrage option charge 0.50% of the amount transferred [S1], 1% on `sécurisation des plus-values` [S3], free [S4] [S13]; illiquid-UC disinvestment penalty 3% within three years of investment and ten of membership and 5% in the art. R. 132-5-3 cases [S10 ART 8.E]	std (6)
Charge disclosure regime	Per-UC table with ISIN, gross performance N−1, support fees, contract fees, total fees and retrocession rate, mandatory since 1 July 2022	R9; instances at [S6] [S8]

Observed frais sur versement: 4.50% maximum [S1]; nil [S3] [S4] [S6] [S7] [S8]; up to 3% at the insurer’s discretion [S13]; 3% on the euro fund and 1% on UC, 0.6% by direct debit [S10]; 0.5% on the euro fund and nil on UC [S11]. 1.00% is chosen as a non-zero mid-range level, because a zero premium charge makes the net-premium and gross-premium floor bases indistinguishable and hides the question the plancher definition turns on.
Anchored on the market average, not on the sample. France Assureurs reports the encours-weighted average contract charge on UC of 0.88% in 2025 — 0.82% for gestion libre and predefined allocations, 1.17% under gestion sous mandat — against 0.66% on euro supports and 0.73% all in R13 R14 REG-R48. Contract-level rates retrieved run 0.475% [S11], 0.50% [S4] [S6], 0.50% including 0.20% of plancher financing plus a separate 0.10% cotisation [S10], 0.60% and 0.80% [S7] [S8], 0.75% [S3], 0.80% including plancher financing [S13], and 1.00% rising to 1.50% on ETF and direct equities [S1]. No statutory ceiling on any French life charge appears in the retrieved texts — art. A. 132-8 requires maxima to be disclosed, not capped REG-R30 — which is why every charge level here is std.
Observed frais d'arbitrage: 1% with a 30 € postal / 15 € online minimum [S1]; nil online, 15 € per paper arbitrage after two free a year [S4] [S6]; 2% towards the euro fund and 0.20% towards UC with twelve free [S10]; nil in all cases [S11]; 0.5% in gestion libre with three free, free in the managed modes [S13]; not applicable [S8]. 0.50% is the PRO BTP level [S13] and sits in the middle. Flat-fee minima are administrative and do not scale, so they are not modeled.
The market spread between gestion sous mandat (1.17%) and gestion libre (0.82%) is 35 bp R13; against the 0.88% all-UC average the surcharge is 29 bp. Contract-level surcharges retrieved: +0.60% [S1]; +0.20% to +0.70% by profile [S4] [S6]; +0.20% [S7] [S8]; +0.30% on both legs [S13]. The base cell runs gestion libre.
Not an insurer cash flow. Fund-level recurring costs reduce the liquidation value and therefore the account value, but they accrue to the fund manager, and only the retroceded share reaches the distributor. Averages over each insurer’s own shelf: equity funds including ETF 1.87% of which 0.80% retroceded, bond 1.18% (0.53%), diversified 1.90% (0.80%), real estate 1.12% (0.28%), unlisted 3.17% (0.78%) [S6]; and 1.23% (0.34%), 1.59% (0.49%), 2.41% (0.61%), 2.71% (0.62%), 0.98% (0.97%), structured 0.00% [S8]. These are contract-specific and not comparable like for like; the market encours-weighted average is 1.60% R13. The model carries them inside the unit-return scenario.

Garantie plancher — the floor death benefit#

Parameter	Representative value	Basis
Availability	Optional rider, elected at subscription only, cancellable but not restartable	[S1] [S3] [S4] [S7]; the automatic form financed inside the management charge is [S10] [S11] [S12] [S13] — see Variations
Entry ages	Over 12 and under 75	[S1] [S3] [S4]; 12 to under 70 [S7]
Cessation	The 75th birthday; also on total surrender, payment of the benefit, cancellation by either party	[S1] [S3] [S4] [S7] [S11]; 70 [S10]; 80 [S12] [S13]
Waiting period (`délai de carence`)	None	[S1] [S3] [S4]; one year [S7]; choice std (13)
Floor basis `simple`	Cumulative premiums net of `frais sur versement`, less partial surrenders and unrepaid `avances` with their interest	[S4 Annexe I] [S10 ART 10]; gross-premium variant [S1] [S3] [S13]; choice std (14)
Floor basis `indexee`	The same base indexed at 3.50% p.a., surrenders indexed on the same basis	rate and rule [S1] [S3] [S2]; applying them to the net-premium base above is std (14)
Floor basis `cliquet`	Ratchet to the highest account value observed at each ratchet date, reduced pro rata by partial surrenders, never below the `simple` floor	std (15) unverified
`Capital sous risque` (net amount at risk)	`max(0, floor − account value across all supports)`, capped at 300,000 €; any excess reduces the floor	[S1] [S3] [S4]; 100,000 € per contract [S7]; no cap stated [S11] [S13]
Charge basis	An annual tariff per 10,000 € of `capital sous risque`, by attained age at the calculation date	[S4 Annexe I] [S1] [S3] [S7]
Charge formula as published	`Pr = K × (PA / 10 000) × 1/52`, computed each Friday, K the `capital sous risque` that day, PA the annual tariff for the attained age	[S4 Annexe I]
Charge formula modeled	`plancher_charge(t) = nar(t) × plancher_rate(age) / 12`, observed and levied monthly	std (16)
When the charge is zero	Whenever the account value is at or above the floor — the rider is a put and costs nothing out of the money	[S3 art. 21] [S4 art. 17.1.2]
Levy source and order	Monthly, in arrears, first from the euro support, then from the largest UC support by cancelling units	[S1] [S3] [S4]; Suravenir accumulates and levies by 31 December [S7]
Machinery not modeled	Minimum levy threshold 20 €/month deferred [S4], 15 € [S1] [S3]; unpaid premiums recovered from the benefit, with suspension, 40 days’ notice and cancellation on default [S1] [S3] [S4]; exclusions — suicide in the first contract year, war, aviation and dangerous sports, the insured’s intentional act, murder by the beneficiary (art. L. 132-24), with IAD expressly excluded [S4] and a longer list at [S7]	std (17)
Effect on minimum surrender values	Where the plancher is in force there are no minimum surrender values expressed in euros, and the deductions are capped neither in euros nor in units; art. A. 132-4-1 worked examples replace the table	[S4 art. 17.1.2] [S7]

Only Suravenir imposes a waiting period, as part of a differently shaped rider that pays the capital sous risque itself [S7]. Zero keeps the first policy year on the same recursion as every later year; a non-zero waiting_months is a gate on nar(t), not a new formula.
Both bases are sourced and they differ by the premium charge. Net premiums: Spirica’s guaranteed capital is the sum of net premiums on all supports less surrenders, avances and unpaid interest [S4 Annexe I]; MACSF’s death capital may not be less than total premiums net of entry charges since membership, less partial surrenders and outstanding advances [S10 ART 10]. Both are recorded in _research/assurance-vie-uc.md as summaries of the retrieved text rather than as transcribed wording, so neither is quoted here. Gross premiums: Generali options 1 and 2 [S1] [S3], PRO BTP [S13 art. 8.2]. Net is chosen because it makes the floor equal to the account value at issue, so the rider starts exactly at the money and nar(0) = 0 is an assertable fact rather than an accident of the premium charge. The indexee row indexes this net base at 3.50%: the rate and the rule that surrenders are indexed on the same basis are Generali’s option 2 [S1] [S3] [S2], but Generali applies both to a gross-premium base [S1] [S3], so the pairing shipped here is a std hybrid — no retrieved document indexes a net base at 3.50%.
No retrieved document offers a ratchet. The three indexation designs actually seen are none (Generali option 1, Spirica, MACSF, Suravenir, Afer), a fixed 3.50% p.a. (Generali option 2 [S1] [S3]) and a discretionary annual rate set by the insurer (PRO BTP [S12] [S13 art. 8.2]). cliquet is introduced here as a standardization so the model carries the three-way plancher_basis column, and its existence in the French market is unverified. Its ratchet period is a parameter, default 12 months. It differs from simple in two ways, both asserted in the worked example: it locks in account-value highs at each ratchet date, and it adjusts for a partial surrender proportionally (a ratchet is a value level) rather than by the nominal amount surrendered.
1/12 of the annual tariff replaces the published 1/52 weekly step. On the published formula the monthly levy is the sum of the 52/12 = 4.3333 weekly premiums observed in the month; PA/12 is the same annual cost applied once against a capital sous risque observed once instead of four or five times. What is lost is the intra-month path of the net amount at risk. Observation frequency in the sources: each Friday [S3] [S4], each Tuesday [S1], each month end [S7].
Threshold deferral, unpaid-premium recovery, the 40-day suspension procedure and the exclusions have no expected-value consequence at single-policy granularity: a deferred levy is collected the following month, an unpaid premium is recovered from the benefit, and the exclusions are a small negative adjustment to the death rate that no retrieved document quantifies. They are recorded so a portfolio implementation can add them.

Published tariffs, annual premium per 10,000 € of capital sous risque by attained age (selected ages; the full tables run 12–74 for Generali and Spirica and 12–75 for Suravenir and are reproduced in _research/assurance-vie-uc.md §7, which is the provenance of the shipped rate table):

Attained age	Generali [S1] [S3]	Spirica [S4]	Suravenir [S7] (monthly per 1,000 € rebased ×120)
≤ 30	12 €	17 €	18 €
35	15 €	21 €	24 €
40	24 €	28 €	36 €
45	40 €	41 €	60 €
50	58 €	61 €	88.8 €
55	82 €	96 €	124.8 €
60	115 €	140 €	172.8 €
65	172 €	196 €	258 €
70	266 €	285 €	399.6 €
74	377 €	408 €	565.2 €

Expressed as annual rates on the capital sous risque the three tariffs run 0.12%–3.77% (Generali), 0.17%–4.08% (Spirica) and 0.18%–6.18% (Suravenir), rising roughly geometrically at 8%–10% a year over ages 40–74 — consistent with a mortality loading, but no insurer publishes the mortality table, the age definition, the expense loading or the margin behind the tariff, so the implied qx cannot be recovered from these documents. Suravenir’s table is printed as a monthly premium per 1,000 €; its encadré separately describes the cover as “de 0,15 ‰ à 5,15 ‰ des capitaux sous risque”, and the monthly-versus-annual reading of that ‰ phrasing is unverified [S7]. The reference implementation ships the Spirica column [S4], the only tariff published together with an explicit premium formula.

Surrender, partial surrender and arbitrage#

Parameter	Representative value	Basis
Surrender right	At any time after the renonciation period; settlement within two months at most (art. L. 132-21), late payment bearing 1.5 × the legal rate for two months then twice	REG-R31 [S10 ART 13]; contractual 30 days [S4] [S11]
Surrender value	Account value across all supports; no exit charge	[S1] [S3] [S4] [S7] [S10] [S11] [S13]
Partial surrender allocation	Pro rata across supports unless the policyholder elects otherwise; always pro rata when repaying an `avance`	[S10 ART 13.A]; default choice std (18)
Effect on the floor	The floor base is reduced by the amount surrendered (indexed on the same basis where `indexee`)	[S1] [S3] [S4 Annexe I]; capital-component variant [S13 art. 8.2]
Minimum surrender values	Tabulated for the first eight years, expressed in number of units for UC	[S3 art. 21] [S4 art. 17] [S7] [S10 ART 12.A] [S11]; the attribution of the duty to art. L. 132-5-2 is unverified here — the REG-R29 entry covers that article’s `note d'information` duty and eight-year renonciation-sanction cap and does not carry the tabulation
Base arbitrage pattern	One 10,000 € euro → UC arbitrage at month 3 in the worked cell	std (19)
Frictions not modeled	Arbitrage minimum 100 € with a 100 € residual [S7]; deferral of arbitrages out of a euro fund or real-estate UC for up to six months, and the insurer’s right to limit investment into the euro fund [S7] [S10 ART 15]; value dating at J+3 for the UC leg of a total surrender [S10 ART 12.B–12.C]; `avances` capped at 60% of the UC savings at TME + 1% reset quarterly [S13 art. 33], always deducted from the plancher benefit [S1] [S3] [S4] [S7] [S10] [S13]; the HCSF’s power to limit surrender payments for up to six consecutive months and to defer or restrict arbitrages and advances REG-R13	std (6)

Pro rata is the only default stated in a retrieved contract [S10 ART 13.A], and MACSF excludes SCPI and private-debt UC from it. In a one-UC-support model pro rata across the euro and UC legs is the whole of the rule; with several UC supports it becomes a per-support split, and an election that empties the loss-making support first would change the UC cost basis and therefore the prélèvements sociaux.
A single euro → UC arbitrage exercises the three things only an arbitrage does: it moves value between the two legs without touching the floor, it buys units at the current liquidation value, and it generates a fee. A programmed arbitrage pattern is specified in the technical notes.

Prélèvements sociaux and policyholder tax#

Parameter	Representative value	Basis
`Prélèvements sociaux` rate	17.2% — CSG 9.9%, CRDS 0.5%, prélèvement social 4.5%, contribution additionnelle 0.3%, prélèvement de solidarité 2.0%	[S4 Annexe II]
UC timing	Levied only at `dénouement` — partial or total surrender, term, or death of the insured — never year by year	R8 II, 3°, c) [S4 Annexe II]
Euro timing	Levied annually, when interest is credited to the contract	R8 II, 3°, a) [S4 Annexe II]
`Eurocroissance` timing	When the guarantee is reached; on death or total surrender, on the gains at that date	R8 II, 3°, b) [S4 Annexe II]
Restitution	Where the contract’s final liquidation produces a negative base, the excess already levied under a) and b) is returned by set-off or reimbursement	R8 III bis
Taxable UC base at partial surrender	`W_uc × (1 − cost_basis / av_uc)` — the surrendered amount less its pro-rata cost	std (20)
Income tax on gains	PFONL 12.8% under eight years, 7.5% at or beyond, taken as a payment on account; then 7.5% on gains attributable to premiums up to 150,000 € and 12.8% above, with a 4,600 € / 9,200 € annual `abattement`	[S4 Annexe II] REG-R40; the 150,000 € threshold is unverified against the article text REG-R40
Death duties	CGI art. 990 I for premiums paid before age 70 — 152,500 € allowance per beneficiary, 20% then 31.25% above 700,000 €; CGI art. 757 B for premiums after 70 — ordinary succession duties on the premiums above a 30,500 € aggregate allowance	[S4 Annexe II] [S10 ART 19] REG-R41
Contract exempt from `taxe d'assurance`	Art. 995 CGI	[S10 ART 19]
Treatment of the plancher top-up	Outside the UC social-levy base	std (21) unverified

The formula is the pro-rata-cost method implied by the general rule that the taxable produit of a partial surrender is the amount surrendered less the corresponding share of premiums. It is applied here to the UC leg only, because only the UC leg is taxed at dénouement R8 II, 3°, c). No retrieved document sets out the arithmetic for a multisupport partial surrender, so the split of a pro-rata surrender into a euro component already taxed and a UC component taxed now is a standardization.
No retrieved document states whether the amount paid above the account value under the garantie plancher is a produit de placement within art. L. 136-7 or a pure insurance benefit outside it. The model treats it as outside the levy base and flags the treatment unverified; the alternative reading changes the beneficiary’s net proceeds, not the insurer’s cash flow.

Contractual mechanics#

Premium, allocation and the unit count. A premium P is reduced by the frais sur versement and the remainder is allocated across the supports on the policyholder’s instruction [S1] [S4] [S7] [S10] [S13]. The UC share buys units at the support’s liquidation value: units = allocated amount / unit_price, to four decimal places [S13 art. 32.2]. From that point the insurer’s commitment is the unit count R2. Every UC charge in every retrieved contract is expressed as a percentage and applied by cancelling units — quarterly at Generali and Spirica [S1] [S3] [S4], monthly at Suravenir and PRO BTP [S7] [S13 art. 32.4], annually on 31 December at MACSF [S10 ART 12.A]. Because the charge cancels units rather than deducting euros, the unit count is a deterministic, market-independent decreasing sequence and the euro account value is units × unit_price. The insurers publish that sequence themselves: Bourso Vie’s statutory eight-year table runs 100 → 99.2521 → 98.5098 → 97.7731 → 97.0418 → 96.3161 → 95.5957 → 94.8808 → 94.1711 units at 0.1875% a quarter [S3 art. 21], and Himalia’s 0.25% a quarter gives 99.0037 → 98.0174 [S2]. Those are exactly (1 − c/4)^{4y}.

UC management charge. The composite levies mgmt_fee_rate_uc / 12 of the units held at the start of each month, cancelling units × c/12 units and realising units × c/12 × unit_price of charge income [S7] [S13 art. 32.4]. PRO BTP’s is the most explicit operative wording retrieved: the charge “ne peut dépasser 0,80 % par an de l’épargne constituée sur chaque support en unités de compte”, is computed on the number of units held at the end of each calendar month, is levied at the next valuation date, reduces the number of units held, and is no longer levied beyond the 80th birthday [S13 art. 32.4]. Suravenir accrues daily on the daily balance and levies monthly in units [S7].

Arbitrage. A switch between supports moves value without changing the contract’s premium history. The amount leaving the source support is reduced by the frais d'arbitrage and the net amount buys units on the destination support at its liquidation value [S1] [S4] [S7] [S10] [S13]. It is not a premium and not a surrender, so it leaves the garantie plancher floor untouched — worth stating because both legs of the contract change and the floor does not. Automatic arbitrage options are described under Riders and are excluded from the base recursion.

Garantie plancher. On the insured’s death before the cessation age the contract pays at least the floor:

death benefit = max(plancher_amount, account value)
              = account value + capital sous risque

with capital sous risque = min(cap, max(0, plancher_amount − account value)) and the cap at 300,000 €, any excess reducing the floor [S1] [S3] [S4]. The identity in the second line is the whole of the modeling content: the insurer’s death strain is exactly the net amount at risk, and it is zero whenever the units are worth more than the floor. The charge is levied on that same net amount at risk, not on the account value: Spirica’s published formula is Pr = K × (PA / 10 000) × 1/52 with K the capital sous risque observed each Friday and PA the annual tariff for the attained age [S4 Annexe I], and both Bourso Vie and Spirica state that where the account value exceeds the guaranteed capital the cost is nil [S3 art. 21] [S4 art. 17.1.2].

Generali’s own statutory illustration is the cleanest numeric evidence that the charge is path-dependent. On a 10,000 € premium split 70% euro / 30% UC for an insured aged 50 with option 1, the euro fund’s year-1 surrender value is 6,947.50 € in the rising-UC scenario — exactly 7,000 × (1 − 0.75%), so the plancher cost is zero — against 6,945.49 € in the falling-UC scenario, a year-1 plancher cost of 2.01 € taken from the euro fund; by year 8 the comparison is 6,590.86 € versus 6,507.00 €. Under option 2 (3.50% indexation) the year-1 figures are 6,945.82 € rising and 6,943.31 € falling, so even in the rising scenario the indexed floor bites [S3 art. 21].

Death, valuation and settlement. Contracts differ on how the account value is measured after death. Bourso Vie states that after death both the euro fund and the UC continue to be valued until the settlement valuation date, so UC values keep fluctuating up and down after death [S3 art. 19]; Afer fixes valuation to the Wednesday liquidation value following receipt of the death certificate [S11]; Suravenir measures the capital sous risque at the date the certificate is received [S7]. Art. L. 132-5 requires the capital to be revalorised from the date of death until receipt of the L. 132-23-1 documents or deposit with the Caisse des dépôts, at not less than a rate fixed by decree — a rate the fetched article text does not expose R11 unverified. Art. L. 132-23-1 gives the insurer fifteen days to request the documents and one month from the complete file to pay REG-R31; the version retrieved for the product file is the pre-2016 text, so any post-loi-Eckert detail is unverified R12. The composite models a single settlement in the month of death and carries the post-mortem valuation window as an unmodeled friction.

Surrender and partial surrender. A total surrender pays the account value across all supports with no exit charge [S1] [S3] [S4] [S7] [S10] [S11] [S13] and ends the garantie plancher [S1] [S3] [S4] [S11]. A partial surrender is allocated pro rata across the supports by default [S10 ART 13.A], cancels units on the UC leg at the current liquidation value, and reduces the floor base by the amount surrendered [S1] [S3] [S4 Annexe I]. Where a beneficiary has formally accepted the benefit under art. L. 132-9 the contract becomes unavailable and any surrender needs that beneficiary’s express agreement [S10 ART 13.A].

Prélèvements sociaux — the deliberate asymmetry. This is the mechanic that most distinguishes a French multisupport contract from a UK unit-linked bond, and it is statutory, not an insurer choice. Art. L. 136-7 II, 3°, a) applies the levy “lors de leur inscription au bon ou contrat” — annually, as interest is credited — for contracts whose rights are expressed in euros and for the euro-denominated component of a multisupport contract; II, 3°, c) applies it “lors du dénouement des bons ou contrats ou lors du décès de l’assuré” for everything not already taxed, which is the unit-linked component R8. So on one contract the social-levy cash flow has an annual component sized on the euro leg’s credited interest and a terminal component sized on the UC gain, and III bis provides restitution of the excess where the final liquidation produces a negative base R8 — the mechanism that refunds an over-levied euro contribution on a contract whose UC leg has lost money. The two must be modeled separately, and the UC component is contingent on a gain: on a UC loss it is zero.

Information and renonciation. The one-page encadré at the head of the proposal or notice must state the contract type, the guarantees with a prominent statement that unit-linked amounts are not guaranteed and are subject to market fluctuations, the participation aux bénéfices, surrender availability and payment period, fees in four categories with maximum amounts or percentages, the recommended holding duration, beneficiary designation and a closing disclaimer REG-R30. The annual statement must show, per support, the number of units held and their value at the last valuation date, and whether the plancher has been renewed [S13 art. 19] REG-R31. Renonciation is 30 calendar days, extended to 30 days after actual delivery of the note d’information where it was not delivered, capped at eight years REG-R29 [S5] [S12].

Riders and options#

In scope, specified and enabled in the base cell:

Garantie plancher — the floor death benefit specified above. It is the only guarantee the reference model prices.

In scope, specified and disabled in the base cell std:

Automatic arbitrage options. Five families appear, all implemented as scheduled arbitrages with a trigger rule. Investissement progressif: monthly arbitrages out of the euro fund into chosen UC, executed on the first Friday, minimum 100 € per arbitrage and 50 € per destination [S4 art. 11.2.1] [S7] [S13]. Sécurisation des plus-values: when the gain over an assiette exceeds a threshold of 5%, 10%, 15% or 20%, the whole observed gain is switched to a money-market support, observed each Friday and executed the following Monday, at 0.50% of the amount transferred [S1] [S4 art. 11.2.2] [S7]; Afer’s published worked example resets a valeur de référence to (100 × 20 + 40 × 25)/140 = 21.43 € on a new investment, then switches (28 − 21.43) × 140 = 920 € of gain, which at the next day’s 28.20 € is 32.62 units [S11 Annexe 4]. Limitation des moins-values in absolute and trailing forms, the trailing reference being the highest liquidation value reached since setup, minimum threshold 5% [S1 art. 14.4] [S4 art. 11.2.3] [S7] [S9]. Rééquilibrage automatique to a target allocation [S4 art. 11.2.4] [S7]. Dynamisation des intérêts: a chosen share of the previous year’s euro-fund interest, net of charges and social levies, switched into UC each January [S11 Annexe 4] [S1] [S7]. Combination rules differ by insurer [S1] [S4] [S7].
Gestion pilotée / mandat d'arbitrage. A delegated allocation at +0.20% to +0.70% p.a. [S1] [S4] [S6] [S7] [S8] [S13]. Modeled as a rate change on mgmt_fee_rate_uc, not as a new mechanic. At Generali ETF and direct equities are unavailable under it and no automatic arbitrage option may be combined with it [S1].

Out of scope (listed):

Garantie vie universelle and garantie vie entière riders [S1] [S3]. The 500,000 € capital sous risque cap on the vie universelle is stated in Bourso Vie’s Annexe 3 alone [S3]; Himalia lists the two riders with no cap [S1].
IFTD trigger. MACSF’s automatic floor is triggered not only by death but by Invalidité Fonctionnelle Totale et Définitive — third-category Social Security invalidity, the surrender to be claimed within one year [S10 ART 10]. Adding it is a second decrement on the same net amount at risk.
Eurocroissance engagements and the provision de diversification [S2] [S4] [S11] REG-R19 — see products/eurocroissance/. Where present, the plancher may still be taken below age 75, at least 10% of the valeur atteinte must stay on the euro fund so the premium can be levied, and the premium is never levied on the fonds croissance [S2].
Annuity conversion, at a 3% charge per instalment [S7] [S13] — see products/rente_viagere/.
Remise de titres (settlement in securities) at 1% of the funds so settled [S7], available in the three cases of L. 131-1 with the no-voting-rights and 10%-holding restrictions R1.
Avances [S13 art. 33] and nantissement [S10 ART 15] [S4] [S7].
Capitalisation contracts (contrat de capitalisation), said to mirror the same UC mechanics without the death benefit — no capitalisation conditions were retrieved, so every statement about them is unverified.

Variations across insurers#

Optional rider versus automatic cover. Generali [S1] [S3], Spirica [S4] and Suravenir [S7] sell the plancher as an optional rider elected at subscription and priced by an explicit age-rated risk premium on the capital sous risque. MACSF [S10], Afer [S11] and PRO BTP [S12] [S13] grant it automatically and finance it inside the management charge. Chosen: the optional, age-rated form — the only one whose price is public, and the only one that isolates the option cost as its own cash flow. The automatic form is the same recursion with plancher_rate a flat, age-independent constant folded into mgmt_fee_rate_uc: MACSF’s all-in cost is 0.30% p.a. of UC (0.10% explicit cotisation plus 0.20% of the 0.50% management charge), charged only to the year of the 70th birthday [S10 ART 8.B, 8.D]; Afer’s is 0.055% p.a., “mutualisé entre tous les adhérents” and explicitly independent of the member’s age [S11]; PRO BTP publishes no separate figure at all, the floor being financed inside the 0.80% UC charge [S13 art. 32.4].
What the floor is measured against. Gross premiums [S1] [S3] [S13]; net premiums [S4] [S10]; the capital sous risque itself as the benefit [S7]; and, uniquely, Afer’s per-support floor of number of units × PRUM, the prix de revient unitaire moyen recomputed at every investment as a units-weighted average and left unchanged by surrenders — (500 × 20 + 2000 × 21)/2500 = 20.80 €, then (2302 × 20.80 + 50 × 22.50)/2352 = 20.84 € in its published example [S11 Annexe 3]. Chosen: contract-level net premiums. The PRUM design is a genuinely different liability — a strip of per-support puts rather than one contract-level put — and deserves its own model point flag if an Afer-shaped book is in scope.
Indexation of the floor. None [S4] [S7] [S10] [S11]; fixed 3.50% p.a. [S1] [S3]; a rate set annually at the insurer’s discretion [S12] [S13 art. 8.2]. Chosen: simple in the base cell with indexee at 3.50% as a parameterised variant. The discretionary form is a class-(b) insurer-discretionary element in the technical notes, not a contractual one, and the model holds the snapshot rate.
Cessation age and cap. Cessation: 70 [S10]; 75 [S1] [S3] [S4] [S7] [S11]; 80 [S12] [S13]. Chosen: 75 — and the choice matters more than it looks, since on the shipped Spirica tariff the rate at 74 is 408/17 = 24× the rate at ages 12–30 [S4], and the other two published tariffs are steeper still (Generali 377/12 and Suravenir 565.2/18, both 31×), so the last five years carry a large share of the lifetime charge and extending to 80 runs past the last published age. Cap: capital sous risque capped at 300,000 € [S1] [S3] [S4]; 100,000 € per contract [S7]; MACSF caps the premiums covered at 762,245 € across all its UC contracts [S10]; no cap stated [S11] [S13]. Chosen: 300,000 €, the majority value. It never binds on the anchor cell; it binds on large contracts in deep drawdowns, exactly where the guarantee matters.
Levy frequency on UC, waiting period, frais sur versement. Levy: quarterly [S1] [S3] [S4]; daily accrual with a monthly levy [S7]; monthly on end-of-month units [S13]; annually on 31 December [S10]; not stated for UC in the retrieved Afer pages [S11]. Chosen: monthly, matching the model’s grid — the difference is second-order but systematic, and it is a named pitfall in the technical notes. Waiting period: none [S1] [S3] [S4] [S10] [S11] [S13], one year at Suravenir in exchange for no medical formalities [S7]; chosen: none. Frais sur versement: 4.50% maximum [S1] down to nil [S3] [S4] [S6] [S7] [S8], and nil on UC with 0.5% on the euro leg [S11]; chosen 1.00% std (footnote 8).
Bancassurance is missing from the sample. Cardif’s key-information portal returned a page shell with the document list rendered client-side, and Sogécap, AXA, CNP and Predica were not reached. The sample is therefore weighted towards broker/online and mutual/association contracts, which are cheaper than the market average R13. Charge levels here are anchored on the France Assureurs averages R13 R14 REG-R48, not on the sample mean, and any statement about bancassurance charge levels is unverified.
Document vintages vary. Himalia [S1] and Afer [S11] are October 2021, Suravenir [S7] April 2022, Spirica’s conditions [S4] July 2024, MACSF [S10] carries October 2024 file metadata, PRO BTP’s DIC [S12] May 2025 and Spirica’s KID [S5] July 2026; Bourso Vie [S3] carries no date at all in its extracted text. Charge levels and tariffs move, and the France Assureurs series R13 is the only 2025-vintage market-wide figure. Afer’s retrieved notice names Aviva Vie and Aviva Épargne Retraite as co-insurers [S11]; that business has since been sold and rebranded, and the current names are unverified.

Regulatory context#

Unit-linked law. Art. L. 131-1 permits the guaranteed capital or annuity to be expressed in unités de compte made of securities or assets offering sufficient protection and appearing on a decree list; settlement is normally in cash, with delivery of the underlying securities permitted in three cases and barred where the securities confer voting rights or where the policyholder and connected persons have held more than 10% of the issuer in the preceding five years R1. The eligibility list is R. 131-1, which admits the R. 332-2 asset classes — OECD sovereign bonds, regulated-market securities and corporate debt, SICAV shares and FCP units, listed equities, insurance-company shares — plus, on the conditions of R. 131-2 to R. 131-4, the real-estate vehicles of 9° bis R3 R4. R. 131-1 II imposes concentration limits per unit type; the percentages reported in the research file come from a paraphrased fetch rather than verbatim article text and are not quoted here R3. Alternative-fund and financing-vehicle units require a suitability gate unless the fund is a retail ELTIF or the contract is under an arbitrage mandate R5, and every multisupport contract must reference at least one UC holding 5%–15% of social-economy or venture-capital securities and at least one UC per State-recognised green or SRI label R6.

Redemption gating. Arts. R. 131-8 to R. 131-12 govern a suspended fund: the restriction applies only to requests made after the fund’s last order centralisation before suspension; unexecuted requests roll forward if the fund values daily or more often and are otherwise cancelled; the insurer may not apply a liquidation value lower than the last published one; any proportional restriction it applies must be at least as favourable as the fund’s own; the policyholder must be informed without delay on a durable medium and the measures are unenforceable against a client who was not advised of them; the ACPR must be notified; and quarterly-disclosed estimated values may be used where no current value exists R7.

Prudential. Technical provisions under Solvabilité II are a best estimate plus a risk margin, the best estimate being the probability-weighted average of future cash flows discounted at the relevant risk-free term structure REG-R1 REG-R4 — stated on EIOPA’s authority, since EUR-Lex could not be fetched and no Solvency II article number in this library was read from the instrument REG-R1 REG-R2. On the French statutory balance sheet art. R. 343-3 enumerates eleven technical provisions and defines the provision mathématique as the difference between the actuarial present values of the insurer’s and the insured’s respective commitments, including future management costs REG-R6. It does not say which of the eleven carries a unités de compte engagement, nor that a UC engagement is measured as a unit count at the liquidation value, and no retrieved statutory or ACPR text does — so the conventional reading is unverified, with MACSF’s notice, which writes its own provision mathématique and surrender values in units, the closest retrieved support [S10 ART 11–12]. On that reading a French UC model’s first liability measure is arithmetic and its second, the plancher liability, is not. No retrieved ACPR or insurer document states how the garantie plancher liability is valued — closed-form option valuation, stochastic projection or unearned premium — and acpr.banque-france.fr returned HTTP 403 to every request, so this library asserts nothing about it. The mortality basis a French tariff may use is fixed by art. A. 335-1: tables homologated by ministerial arrêté, by sex, established on INSEE data for non-annuity contracts, or tables built by the undertaking on its own experience and certified by an independent actuary REG-R23. INSEE’s national series is the only freely redistributable French mortality data and is the source behind the decrement tables this library ships REG-R24.

Macroprudential. Art. L. 631-2-1 CMF lets the HCSF, on a proposal of the Governor of the Banque de France and to prevent a serious and characterised threat to financial stability, limit the payment of surrender values and defer or restrict arbitrages and advances — three months at a time, renewable, with the surrender restriction capped at six consecutive months REG-R13. It has no UK or US analogue and it is the reason a French mass-surrender stress on a multisupport contract is not simply a lapse multiplier.

Conduct and disclosure. The document d'informations clés (DIC) is the PRIIPs key-information document: a standardised precontractual document of at most two to three pages, delivered a reasonable time before subscription, and expressly not a marketing document R16. For a multisupport contract it is written as a multi-option product, so the summary risk indicator is a range — “entre les classes de risque 1 et 7 sur 7” [S5], “classe de risque 1 à 5 sur 7” [S12] — and so are the cost tables: 50.25 €–1,668.95 € of total costs after one year and 404.84 €–30,028.49 € after eight on 10,000 € [S5]; 73 €–648 € and 724 €–4,553 € [S12]. Both retrieved MOP DICs omit numeric performance scenarios and defer to the per-support documents. The AMF’s doctrine DOC-2011-05 is the retrievable anchor for the PRIIPs chain and cites Regulation (EU) 1286/2014 and Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/653 as reference texts R15 REG-R33; neither regulation could be fetched — EUR-Lex returned empty bodies to every endpoint tried — so no PRIIPs article number, no SRI methodology, no performance-scenario definition and no reduction-in-yield formula is asserted anywhere in these documents R17 R18 REG-R33 unverified. The note d'information and the encadré are prescribed by arts. A. 132-4 and A. 132-8 REG-R30, and the per-support fee transparency table by the arrêté du 24 février 2022, in force from 1 July 2022 R9, of which [S6] and [S8] are instances.

Unclaimed contracts, guarantee scheme and policyholder tax. The loi Eckert obliges insurers to consult the RNIPP annually through a professional body and to search for beneficiaries; a contract is unclaimed where the benefit has not been claimed ten years after the insurer knew of the death, at which point the proceeds transfer to the Caisse des dépôts et consignations and become State property twenty years later R10 REG-R39 [S11]. The FGAP covers 70,000 € per person per insurer for capital and 90,000 € for annuities in payment, under art. L. 423-1 [S5]; PRO BTP’s DIC states the 70,000 € capital figure and describes the ACPR’s transfer tender on a failure, and gives no annuity figure [S12]. Policyholder gains are taxed at dénouement only, with the eight-year threshold, the 7.5%/12.8% split and the 4,600 € / 9,200 € annual abattement [S4 Annexe II] REG-R40; death benefits fall under CGI arts. 990 I and 757 B according to whether the premium was paid before or after the insured’s 70th birthday [S4 Annexe II] [S10 ART 19] REG-R41. None of it is an insurer cash flow — but the eight-year threshold is a behavioral fact of the first order, and a model that puts no surrender spike at duration eight has ignored it REG-R40.