Faced with the multiplication of natural disasters, can Aude become an “insurance desert”?

Cat Nat, a diet in danger

A diet “out of breath” : this is how Senator Christine Lavarde described the natural disaster compensation scheme (Cat Nat) in May 2024. Since then, the elected LR of Hauts-de-Seine has tabled a bill (PPL) intended to ensure the balance of the diet. Adopted in the finance committee, the text was also adopted in session by the upper house. And the emergency is real. Created in 1982, the regime

financed by the Cat Nat surcharge, a compulsory guarantee extension for all damage insurance contracts (multi-risk home, all car risks, professional premises), is intended to cover natural risks deemed uninsurable by the private sector alone: ​​floods , earthquakes, cyclones and clay shrinkage-swelling risk (RGA). At the heart of the reactor, the central reinsurance fund, the insurer of insurers.
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With the Insurability Observatory, detect “phenomena of selection, disengagement or departure of insurers from certain areas”^{A CCR which, in an October 2023 report, sounded the alarm, pointing out the effects of climate change. With the increase in extreme events, between drought and floods, compensation costs are soaring. The Cat Nat annual contribution had made it possible to raise 2 billion euros in 2023 for 111 million insured goods: and for the 7} e

times in 8 years since 2016, the cost linked to Cat Nat of the year was higher than the premiums received. As a result, the level of Cat Nat reserves, estimated at €3 billion at the end of 2021, was around €500 to €600 million at the end of 2023.

Insurances that are soaring^{The 1} is^{January 2025, the Cat Nat surcharge will increase from 12% to 20% for home and from 6 to 9% for car: the equivalent of an average increase of €17 for an individual for home insurance, estimates France Insurers. A 1} is^{act taken to strengthen the funds of the scheme. Urgently, because over the first six months of 2024, the cost of climate losses increased by 20% compared to 1} is

half-year 2023. And the CCR report describes a bleak future, with an increase in claims of 40% by 2050, and 43 billion euros to be paid for drought claims alone between 2020 and 2050: quite simply more than triple that of the previous decade (13.8 billion over 1989-2019). Insurance is, however, undeniably doing well: in 2023, all contributions collected (people, property and liability combined) brought in 252.8 billion euros to the profession, with in return benefits estimated at 224.9 billion. A comfortable delta of almost 30 billion euros.
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These figures make Aude a territory on the front line for natural disasters… and the demand for insurance

But not for Cat Nat, which represented 0.8% of contributions received but 1.6% of benefits paid, with 2 billion contributions (+ 7.2%), but 3.6 billion benefits (+ 38.3 %). An observation which, in addition to the increase in the Cat Nat surcharge, has led insurers to prepare the ground for overall increases in contracts, citing climate change, of course, but also the increased cost of auto repairs and the surge in costs. raw materials for construction. Since September, companies and specialized firms have been broadcasting the painful prospect of an increase in auto (4 to 6%), home (10 to 15%) and health (5.5 to 8%) insurance premiums in 2025. average increases, which companies could modulate according to the zones, and the Cat Nat risks which concern them. When they do not choose to engage less, if not withdraw, from high-risk territories.

A textbook case in Carcassonne The subject, raised in Carcassonne on September 29 in the municipal council, should also find a place in the next Journal de la Ville, with the text submitted by opposition elected official Tamara Rivel. Its title: “What insurance for new residents of flood-prone neighborhoods?” A question asked based on a textbook case. That of the refusal formulated by a company to insure a residential house, rue Achille-Mir, an axis hit by the floods of 2018 and 2020. Reason given: national directives requiring the issue of only three new contracts per year, in favoring the economic sector. With the kind advice given to an insured who has been covered for 40 years for other property“shop around insurance and banking companies to see if they agree to cover you”

. Quite simply unacceptable for the elected official who, flood risk prevention plan (PPRI) in hand, recalls the “dwellings concerned” in Carcassonne, citing the Laprade districts (289 houses) or the Barbacane, de l'Ile, and banks of the Aude sectors before asking a question: “What will become of these neighborhoods if new residents cannot settle there due to lack of insurance?” Deputy in charge of the environment, Arnaud Albarel confirms the concern, recalling that in 2018, the City had to battle for a long time and contact the prefect on the issue, obtaining Cat Nat recognition hard for the landslides in Grazailles . But the elected official knows well that, since 2018, the problem has worsened:

“At a minimum, insurers will increase their prices. And we can indeed fear that they will withdraw from certain areas.”

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When the Barnier government “picks the pockets” of a Barnier Fund so precious for Aude A situation known to the State, in a department where, since 1982, more than 4,000 natural disaster recognitions have been granted for flooding or RGA. Secretary general of the prefecture, Lucie Roesch specified on October 28 that“we have indeed clearly identified this difficulty, both through the municipality of Carcassonne, but also through reports from individuals reporting difficulties in being insured. On the prefecture side, this is a situation that we have reported to the ministry on several occasions in recent years, without concrete progress to date to our knowledge”

. Specifying having“difficult to precisely identify the number of individuals concerned and their location” the general secretary recalls that, if the State is there to support individuals and communities in matters of prevention,“locally, it has no power to force insurers to insure individuals” . Because only one recourse exists for individuals deprived of insurance: contact the central pricing office (BCT), a little-known organization, which, insisted Senator Lavarde, requires proving the refusal linked to the importance of the Cat Nat risk. A bias that the elected LR wants to circumvent in her PPL by integrating a“presumption of refusal on the grounds of exposure to natural disasters, which would be limited to the most exposed areas” pour“allow the right to insure one’s property to be made effective”

. To be continued. In 2022, the BCT was contacted for six cases linked to natural disasters, and 274 for the termination of automobile contracts… To be continued, while also awaiting lessons from the insurability observatory entrusted by the State to the CCR.

Removal-swelling of clays, the final blow?

Since 1982, on a national scale, for the Cat Nat regime, floods have represented 49% of claims (excluding auto), drought 42%. Over the last 10 years, the trend has largely reversed: 31% for floods, 54% for drought. According to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, 10.4 million individual houses are located in zones of “medium or high” exposure to the phenomenon of clay shrinkage-swelling (RGA), with an annual load estimated in 2022 between 2.4 and 2.9 billion euros, more than 1 billion between 2017 and 2020 and €445 million on average since 1982.