Yesterday acclaimed for the security of its guaranteed euro funds, life insurance is now combined with the “unit-of-account” (UC) mode, that is to say financial or real estate supports, for which insurers do not. commit not to the value of the invested capital, but to the number of these units of account.
Since the first eleven months of 2021, the payments made by savers on these famous units have reached 52.2 billion euros and the net inflows (payments less withdrawals) amounted to 30.9 billion euros, according to the latest figures from the French Insurance Federation. The share of units of account in payments on life insurance contracts is 38% over the first eleven months of 2021. It was only 35% in 2020, and 28% in 2019.
The universe of UC is now extremely large, and likely to meet most of the needs of savers. We find, of course, supports in listed shares, representative of collective funds (sicav, mutual funds …), which are among the riskiest since their value can drop sharply in a short time, as we have seen. in 2020 when the health crisis broke out, with reductions of 40% to 50% in just a few weeks.
While most of these funds are conventional, with so-called “active” management (the manager can deviate from the composition of stock market indices), more and more contracts now include ETFs, or trackers, allowing replication. the evolution of stock market indices at very low prices, by offering a very wide diversification in a single support.
Deemed to be less risky, bond, government or private company funds do not however protect against losses, since these financial instruments see their value evolve in the opposite direction to the interest rates on the financial markets. . When these rates rise, the value of bonds automatically decreases; a risk to be taken seriously today, because these rates are extremely low, while inflationary threats are increasing.
Stone, security
Still in the financial field, but disconnected from the stock market proper, there are also, and more and more often, unlisted equity or bond funds (“private equity” in particular), known for their good long-term performance (more than 10% per year), but also risky since their value depends on the good health of the companies in the portfolio.
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