Life insurance has been facing new competition for two years, with the appearance of the retirement savings plan (PER) which also takes the form of life insurance. With 3.8 million subscribers in two years, the PER is a great success, but professionals do not see it as a competitor. “The PER is rather a good complement”, estimates Xavier Prin, director at Boursorama, which has just launched his own.
If they don’t really box in the same category, PER and life insurance have different strengths to show. The PER is an excellent tax exemption product, which offers the possibility of deducting the sums paid from taxable income in fairly large proportions, while life insurance has no such advantage.
On the other hand, life insurance offers total and permanent liquidity, while the capital invested in the PER is frozen until retirement; only the purchase of the principal residence or the accidents of the life make it possible to recover the funds before the hour.
Clarify fees
In terms of transmission, both offer reductions of the same amounts, with an important nuance: in life insurance, it is the age of payment of contributions that conditions the tax system, while in the PER, it is is the age of death which is taken into account.
Technically, the two products are quite similar, although life insurance is generally less expensive than PER, where insurers have had a heavy hand. Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, considered them excessive and asked the profession to make efforts to present them in a more understandable way, so that comparisons are easier.