Major upheavals in perspective in the mortgage and insurance sector. After long hesitation, the law carried by the deputy of the Agir group, Patricia Lemoine, is finally implemented from June 1, 2022 and must modify the rules of borrower insurance. Articulated in three parts, it softens many measures considered retrograde and facilitates access to credit.
If borrower insurance is not compulsory, it is still requested by all banks in the context of a mortgage. Intended to cover a possible health problem or a difficulty of the borrower, it has a significant cost, considered as one of the most important of the financing.
This sum would have the possibility of being lowered thanks to the game of competition and the subscription of an external insurance. According to MP Patricia Lemoine, this law could symbolize “an average saving between 5,000 and 15,000 euros over the duration of the loan.”
With the Lemoine law, many borrowers hope for a strengthening of the information offered by banks. Each year, the latter will have the obligation to inform their customers of their right to terminate their insurance contract. The expiry date of the borrower insurance should also be mentioned, as well as its cost over 8 years. Other important measures complement this law and profoundly modify access to mortgages.
Now, all borrowers will be able to change borrower insurance whenever they want, without upfront any costs. New insurance contracts, signed from June 1, will be affected immediately.
For contracts currently in progress, it will be necessary to wait until September 1, 2022 for the change to take effect. While this system has undergone several amendments in recent years, it was previously impossible to modify your borrower insurance more than once a year. The anniversary date of the contract also had to be respected. Thanks to the Lemoine law, competition should be revived in a sector where banks retain a monopoly.
The implementation of the Lemoine law marks the end of the medical questionnaire for a large number of borrowers. While this form was used by banks to find out about the state of health of their borrower, it guided the price of borrower insurance. From June 1, it will be abolished for loans with a value of less than 200,000 euros.
For a couple, a threshold of 400,000 euros will be set. In the case of home loans, it will also no longer be necessary to present it when the repayment is completed before the borrower’s 60th birthday. Many associations have welcomed this decision, which symbolizes a real step forward for former patients forced to bear increased prices. For its part, Crédit Mutuel had already prepared for this eventuality since it had abolished this questionnaire at the end of 2021.
This was one of the big announcements provided for by this law: people who have experienced health problems will see the right to be forgotten shortened. The text of the law asks the banks that have signed the AERAS (Insuring and Borrowing with an Aggravated Health Risk) agreement to bring forward the deadline for the right to be forgotten.
For former cancer or hepatitis C patients, this period of time will be reduced by half, from 10 to 5 years. In the context of a healing that took place more than five years ago, it will no longer be necessary to mention his illness when signing the contract. Again, this decision comes to relieve the borrowers that a past health problem has so far prevented from acquiring a home.
