Le 18/19 d'Hedwige Chevrillon · BFM Business

La France : vers des zones inassurables ? – 09/04

·50 min·3 clips

The CEO of AIMA Group warns that France risks becoming uninsurable if territorial planning doesn't adapt to climate change.

1. Le 18/19, hosted by Stéphanie Collot on BFM Business, covers the Strait of Hormuz crisis, AEMA Group's annual results, and the transformation of French retail banking. 2. Journalist Eline Le Faou reports on the Hormuz standoff; Jean-Joseph Boileau of IRIS provides geopolitical analysis; Adrien Courret, general director of AEMA Group, discusses insurance results; Julien Bette, Bain & Company partner, presents a 12-year banking behavior study. 3. The episode's core thesis is that three simultaneous disruptions—climate risk, geopolitical friction, and AI-driven consumer autonomy—are reshaping the economics of protection in France. 4. Iran has imposed authorization requirements on each vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz, with only 7 ships crossing the day before broadcast, while three Chinese oil companies, one Saudi company, and two Indian supertankers waited in queue. 5. Tehran is proposing a 1% per-barrel transit fee, which translates to roughly $2 million per supertanker, generating an estimated $40-50 billion in annual revenue for the Iranian government. 6. France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barreau denounced the fee on France Inter, calling freedom of navigation 'a common good of humanity' that cannot be blocked or taxed. 7. Jean-Joseph Boileau explains Pakistan's role as mediator between Iran and the US, citing Pakistan's dependence on Gulf oil, 12 million diaspora workers in the Gulf, and a shared Baloch separatist problem along the Iran-Pakistan border. 8. AEMA Group reported a net profit of 326 million euros for 2025, with a solvency ratio of 212%—the highest since the group's founding five years ago through the merger of Macif, Aesio Mutuel, and the acquisition of Aviva France (now Abeille Assurance). 9. AEMA's survey of French households found that only 25% of respondents feel well protected in 2025, down from 31% the prior year, driven by concerns about health access, personal safety, and climate events. 10. Courret disclosed that the French insurance sector paid out 5.2 billion euros in climate-related claims in 2025, exactly matching the four-year average, but double the average from 1990 to 2009, with a further doubling projected for the next decade. 11. AEMA's property insurance segment posted a loss of 1.5 million euros in 2025, with climate claims alone costing 480 million euros, creating what Courret called 'a real quadrature of the circle' for insurers committed to universal coverage. 12. Courret argued that the taxation of insurance in France is among Europe's highest: health insurance is taxed at 18% versus 0% in Germany and 1% in Italy, and basic liability auto insurance is taxed at 50%. 13. AEMA absorbed 80 million euros in additional taxes in 2025 (from the exceptional 2% health insurance levy plus the corporate surtax) without passing those costs to policyholders. 14. Courret called for public-private partnerships modeled on France's road safety prevention campaigns to address upstream health causes—including dietary links to cancer and chronic diseases from pesticides—rather than treating only the financial consequences. 15. Bain's 12-year study found that the share of financial products held with a customer's primary bank fell from 78% in 2021 to 64% in 2025, driven by a 30% increase in annual product subscriptions per customer. 16. One-quarter of French adults under 35 now use AI tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini to research financial services, and one-third of that group subscribes to products based on AI recommendations. 17. Traditional banks Société Générale and BNP are cutting costs—Société Générale eliminating 1,800 positions by 2027, BNP closing 200 branches between 2025 and 2027—but Bette argues these are not the only viable response. 18. The format is a structured 50-minute magazine program with three 15-minute segments, each anchored by a named expert interviewed live; the tone is analytical and neutral, with Collot pressing guests on concrete numbers and policy implications. 19. The episode is best suited for French-speaking professionals tracking European insurance, banking regulation, and geopolitical risk in the Middle East. 20. Listeners seeking light news or non-financial topics will find the level of regulatory and actuarial detail demanding.

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