Preventing and compensating natural disasters will require more resources, according to the public reinsurer

The increase in natural disasters will require more resources, both for prevention and to insure damage, estimates Edouard Vieillefond, general director of the Caisse centrale de reassurance (CCR), in an interview Thursday February 22 with Argus de l'Argus insurance.

Commenting on the announced increase in the surcharge which finances the natural disaster regime - known as "Cat Nat", in deficit since 2015 -, from 12 to 20% for housing contracts on January 1, 2025, Mr. Vieillefond recalls that he recommended a short-term increase to at least 19%, "then a regular evolution up to at least 22%".

The Central Reinsurance Fund, a public institution, manages this regime by providing insurers with unlimited reinsurance coverage when a state of natural disaster is declared.

The Cat Nat regime will be called upon more due to "the increase in the frequency and intensity of catastrophic events", he predicts, worrying in this context about the "tendency to stagnate" of the endowment of the Major Natural Risk Prevention Fund.

However, “the need for prevention investments is increasing at least as quickly as disasters,” he emphasizes. In particular, the challenge of the much feared phenomenon of shrinkage-swelling of clay soils (RGA), a dangerous alternation of drought and rehydration which causes buildings to crack, is according to him "monstrous", and "is estimated in hundreds of billions euros".

The RGA threatens 11 million individual homes in France, but "there is no consensus on repair techniques or prevention techniques."

“Certain areas, we know, will become uninsurable,” recalls Edouard Vieillefond, citing mountain regions threatened by the formation of glacial lakes, coastlines experiencing the retreat of the coastline or river beds exposed to flooding.

“They are fortunately rare but today, in practice, they are no longer buildable or insurable,” he notes.

According to him, there is a need for up-to-date risk mapping validated by the State.

Edouard Vieillefond does not rule out adding certain perils to natural disasters, such as major storms, which are currently excluded. He first mentions “the hail hazard”.

Former insurer Thierry Langreney was commissioned by the government to carry out a study on the insurability of climate risks. He must return his copy in the coming weeks.