Insurance prices in 2024: Bruno Le Maire calls on the French to “enlist competition”

Faced with the expected increase in insurance premiums in 2024, the Minister of the Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire called on the French on Thursday to “enlist competition” to obtain more advantageous rates. “It has escaped no one's notice that the year 2023 was marked by a succession of calamities, episodes of drought (...) This increases the cost of insurance,” argued the minister on BFMTV/ RMC.

“We will ensure that the increases” in insurance premiums are “reasonable” in 2024, he continued, “but I am not going to tell you this morning that there is an increase in climate disasters (with ) a dizzying cost, but to guarantee you (at the same time) that I am going to stop insurance premiums, that would be a lie!” “The real issue now is to bring in competition: if you are not satisfied with your insurance premium, you can change it very quickly,” argued Bruno Le Maire, estimating that in 2023 insurers had “kept their word” by not increasing their prices at a rate higher than that of inflation.

For 2024, “I invite everyone to encourage competition when it comes to insurance premiums. Then, we must look in the long term at how we can insure risks which are no longer probable risks, but certain risks,” added the minister. This is the whole meaning of a mission launched in May by Bruno Le Maire and the Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu on “the insurability of climate risks”. Bruno Le Maire undertook on Thursday to present the conclusions of this mission “at the beginning of January”. According to estimates by industry specialists assurland.com and Facts

The insurance companies made a commitment in September 2022 to Bruno Le Maire to keep their price increases below inflation for two years, a promise which appears broken for next year. The sector defends itself by asserting that its commitment included the current year, 2022, and therefore only ran until 2023.