The right-wing majority Senate adopted on Wednesday evening at first reading a reform of borrower insurance refusing the possibility of changing it at any time. On the other hand, the text provides for new provisions on the health aspect.
It was expected. The Senate majority on Wednesday rejected the reform of borrower insurance which provided for the possibility of changing it at any time. Led by MP Patricia Lemoine (Agir group) and supported by the government, its objective is to introduce more competition in the banking sector, in a position of strength in this area (88% market share), and in the insurance sector, in order to lower costs for the consumer.
Interview with Patricia Lemoine: The reform of borrower insurance will restore purchasing power
But the Senate rejected the heart of the text, the possibility of changing borrower insurance, free of charge, at any time, and no longer just on the anniversary date. The French Banking Federation welcomed a common sense choice senators and boasting of the balance found by the upper chamber between competition, individualization and pooling.
It’s purchasing power, and in addition we don’t burn the cash register
I am extremely, reacted the opposite Eric Maumy, president of the April group and member of the Association for the promotion of competition in creditor insurance. Termination at any time is the only effective measure to allow the 7 million French people (with current credit, editor’s note), especially the most fragile, to compete and make substantial savings, he said.
In the hemicycle, the discussion was lively. Why have you emptied this advance of its substance?, asked Minister Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, praising a measure that would not cost the State one euro. It’s purchasing power, and in addition we do not burn the cash, he ironis. Simplicity, common sense, is termination at any time, supported Emmanuel Capus (Independents), while the ecologist Daniel Salmon suggested that the position of the senatorial right responded to the banking lobby. We do not work here for lobbies, reacted the chair of the Economic Affairs Committee, Sophie Primas (LR).
Since 2010, the Lagarde law allows borrowers to opt for another insurance than that offered by their bank. And several other laws have then already worked for more competition, in particular allowing customers to change insurance every year, but alternative insurers accuse the banks, which hold the majority of the market, of doing obstruction.
Criticizing false information and caricatures, the rapporteur for the text at the Senate Daniel Gremillet (LR) affirmed that competition already exists on this market and works well. According to him, the new system would not create new savings, but would risk penalizing the elderly and fragile public.
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Reduction of the right to be forgotten period
The Senate has instead planned to strengthen the information of policyholders on current law. The notion of expiry date, from which the period during which the insured is authorized to cancel is calculated today, would be clarified. The Senate also rewrote the health section of the text. The senators thus planned to delete the medical questionnaire for home loans of less than 350,000 euros which expire before the borrower’s 65th birthday.
If the rapporteur has an unprecedented advance, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne warned against easy solutions sometimes attractive at first sight but which can have the opposite effect to the desired effect. The upper house has again adopted an amendment aimed at directly enshrining in law the reduction of the period of the right to be forgotten by ten to five years for cancers, to extend this right to be forgotten to chronic pathologies and to remove the borrowing ceiling for people benefiting from the AERAS agreement (Insuring and Borrowing with an Aggravated Health Risk). The text adopted by the National Assembly only called on the signatories of the AERAS convention to work on these changes.
Deputies and senators will now try to reach an agreement on a common version of the text in a joint committee. If they fail, the National Assembly will have the last word.
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