Real estate loan: CNP Assurances facilitates access for cancer patients

This is an important step forward for former cancer patients. CNP Assurances announced on Tuesday the removal of additional premiums and exclusions in borrower insurance for people who have overcome breast cancer. “We are the first insurer to go further than the regulations in force,” said Thomas Chardonnel, director of French partnerships at CNP Assurances, on Tuesday afternoon. This measure should concern a thousand borrowers each year, out of the approximately 10 million borrower insurance contracts marketed by the insurer, a subsidiary of the Postal Bank. According to Thomas Chardonnel, the number could however be higher thanks to eligible people who are currently refraining from applying for a loan. Nearly 60,000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer last year, according to Public Health France. The measure will concern all CNP Assurances partners and distributors including Banque Postale, the BPCE group (Banque populaire, Caisse d'Épargne) and BoursoBank (formerly Boursorama, a subsidiary of Société Générale). Its implementation will cost several million euros, says CNP Assurances.

Borrower insurance accompanies a real estate loan and allows payment of remaining installments in the event of death or disability. Since 2022 and the entry into force of the Lemoine law, French people can change insurer at any time, free of charge. The law also removed the medical questionnaire for property loans of less than 200,000 euros and reduced the “right to be forgotten” period to five years for former cancer or hepatitis C patients. “For us, it is obviously very good news,” reacted to AFP the general director of the Rose Up association Isabelle Huet, who hopes that other market players will join this initiative and that other cancers will benefit from the same measure.

Borrower insurance is an extremely profitable product for banks, highlighted as such by consumer associations for several years.