Tribune. While the health crisis has revealed certain limits of our system of support for the loss of autonomy, the integration of the risk of dependency in the new Social Security financing law, promulgated in August 2020, obviously marks a step forward. , but it invites us to collectively question ourselves on the solutions that we can provide in the face of this major challenge.
To understand the scale of the issue, it is necessary to be aware that the demographic dynamics will lead in the coming decades to a significant growth in the number of dependent elderly people.
The example across the Channel
According to the report ” Consultation. Old age and autonomy ”Submitted in March 2019 by Dominique Libault to Agnès Buzyn, then Minister of Health, the population of people aged 85 and over will multiply by 3.2 in France by 2050 to reach 4.8 million. This should represent 2.2 million people with loss of autonomy, against 1.3 million in 2017. However, care for dependency is extremely expensive. Already in 2014, 30 billion euros were devoted to it, of which 80% of public expenditure.
The amounts involved make it possible to understand the complexity of the task. The loss of autonomy entails significant costs for the person concerned but also often for his relatives. Partial support by the community provides the beginning of an answer, but we cannot avoid thinking about the complementary role that household savings should play in financing dependency. Professionals in wealth management and asset management, we must find the appropriate mechanisms to make a more effective contribution to the savings accumulated throughout life when the loss of autonomy occurs.
One of the avenues that we could implement would be to open up the possibility, on all existing or future life insurance contracts, of converting all or part of the savings into an annuity adapted and specific to needs of a dependent person. The “improved annuity” system that exists across the Channel could prove to be a judicious source of inspiration.
Assuming that from the age of 80, a dependent person lives on average four years, the pension must be substantial, in particular to cover the costs linked to the assumption of responsibility for the loss of autonomy. According to a study by the CSA [menée en 2014], those over 75 have an average of 63,000 euros outstanding on their life insurance policy.
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