With climate change, goods more difficult to insure

“An insurer has the right to refuse a risk,” recalls Olivier Moustacakis, general director of the comparator Assurland.

Laurent Huger, mayor of L'Aiguillon-la-Presqu'île, a town in Vendée ravaged by storm Xynthia in 2010, sees this every day.

"Insurers tend to look twice before insuring a house that changes ownership. As long as the house is insured, they continue to do so. But when there is a transfer of ownership, the new buyer may have to hard to find insurance,” he told AFP.

“For the new buyer, it’s a bit of an obstacle course. And when they find insurance, it’s generally with a high level of pricing,” he laments.

“It’s a national problem. We can make this observation in France in all areas subject to climatic phenomena,” laments the elected official. Atlantic coast submerged, Pas-de-Calais flooded, Haute-Vienne dried up...

The country is experiencing greater warming than the global average, in particular because the continents are warming more than the oceans. And with this warming comes more severe bad weather and drought.

The CEO of Axa Henri de Castries already declared in 2015 that “a world 4 degrees warmer (would be) impossible to ensure”. This is the warming now predicted by the government in mainland France by 2100, compared to the 1850s.

Before that, the executive envisages an increase in average temperatures of 2,7°C in 2050, or 1 degree more than today.

The sums at stake are enormous: natural events are expected to cost a total of 143 billion euros over the period 2020-2050, almost twice as much as in 1989-2019, according to France Assureurs.

Occitanie more expensive

In detail, it would be necessary to advance 54 billion euros for floods and marine submersion (+87%), 46 billion for storms (+46%), and 43 billion for droughts (+215%).

“We will need a lot of insurance premiums to cover these losses”, recently explained the general director of Maif, Pascal Demurger, at the “France adapts” event. “By 2050, for example, we expect on average a doubling of home insurance premiums.”

In the near future, the surcharge which finances the natural disaster regime - in deficit since 2015 - must increase from 12 to 20% on January 1, 2025.

Some figures are a little chilling: 48% of French territory is exposed to the risk of “high or medium” drought. There are 11,1 million individual houses - out of 20,3 million in the country - which could potentially crack, due to the much feared phenomenon of shrinkage-swelling of clay soils (RGA), a dangerous alternation of drought and rehydration.

According to France Assureurs, the "high" risk concerns 3,3 million houses, including 90% of those in Gers.

The phenomenon cost 2,9 billion euros in 2022 alone, according to insurers.

Climate disasters are already weighing on contributions, notes Assurland. “Occitanie, particularly affected by severe weather and the consequences of drought, increases by 8% and is now established as the most expensive region ahead of Paca and Ile-de-France,” indicates the comparator in its latest study (mid-2023).

“The risk (...) is that a certain number of insurers will withdraw,” points out Pascal Demurger. "It's starting. (...) Some insurers, undoubtedly a little less scrupulous, have already withdrawn and refuse to insure homes that are too exposed to flooding or other perils."

And to cite the specter of American examples, California and Florida where “it becomes very complicated” to obtain insurance.

Former insurer Thierry Langreney was commissioned by the government to carry out a study on the insurability of climate risks.

The profession readily talks about strengthening the natural disaster regime - regulated by the State -, pooling risks between insurers, increased prevention or "the dissemination of a culture of natural risk within our populations". Mr. Langreney must return his copy in the coming weeks.