Every mortgage in France comes bundled with a compulsory insurance policy, and for international buyers this single line item can swing the total cost of a loan by thousands of euros over its lifetime. This guide explains how French mortgage insurance works, what lenders actually require, and where non-residents most often overpay without realising it.
In France, the borrower’s insurance attached to a home loan is called assurance emprunteur. It is not the same product as buildings insurance or home contents cover. Its purpose is to guarantee that the lender is repaid if something happens to the borrower during the life of the loan: death, total and permanent disability (PTIA), and in most contracts, temporary incapacity to work (ITT) or partial disability (IPT). Some policies for self-employed borrowers or older applicants also include a loss-of-employment clause, although this is optional and rarely worth the extra premium.
Unlike buildings insurance, this cover is not a legal obligation written into the Civil Code. It is, in practice, a commercial condition: no French bank will release mortgage funds without it, because the loan itself is what the insurance secures. For a foreign buyer this distinction matters, because it means the insurance is negotiable in a way that many first-time applicants do not expect.
When a French bank issues a mortgage offer, it will almost always propose its own in-house group insurance contract, known as the contrat groupe. This is administratively convenient: one signature, one monthly debit, one point of contact. It is also, for the large majority of borrowers, the more expensive option.
A group policy prices risk across the bank’s entire borrower pool. A young, healthy applicant effectively subsidises older or higher-risk borrowers in the same pool. An individual policy, sold by a specialist insurer rather than the bank, prices the same borrower’s actual risk profile: age, health, smoking status, and profession. For a borrower in their thirties with no significant health history, an individual contract can come in at roughly a third to half the cost of the bank’s group offer, for the identical guarantees.
French law has protected this choice explicitly since the Lagarde law of 2010, reinforced by the Bourquin amendment and, most recently, the Lemoine law of 2022. A lender cannot refuse a borrower’s chosen insurer as long as the guarantees offered are equivalent to its own contract, and cannot charge a different interest rate as a disguised penalty for choosing external insurance. In practice, banks are required to compare guarantee by guarantee against a standardised checklist (the fiche standardisée d’information) rather than reject a policy on vague grounds.
What this means in practice: you are entitled to bring your own insurance contract to a French mortgage from day one, known as délégation d’assurance. You are also entitled, since the Lemoine law, to switch insurer at any point during the loan with no cancellation fee and no need to wait for an anniversary date, as long as the new contract’s guarantees are at least equivalent.
Insurers assess risk through a health questionnaire, and increasingly, for larger loans, a medical examination. Two factors specific to international buyers tend to push premiums up if they are not addressed early.
The first is residency status itself. A borrower who does not live in France, and who may return to a home country with different healthcare access, is sometimes quoted a loading by insurers who are less familiar with pricing that profile. This loading is not universal: specialist brokers who deal regularly with non-resident files can usually find insurers who price the risk on its merits rather than applying a blanket surcharge. Shopping the file to more than one insurer, rather than accepting the first quote, is the single most effective lever here.
The second is currency and income structure. A self-employed borrower paid in a foreign currency, or a retiree drawing a foreign pension, often triggers a manual underwriting review rather than automated pricing. This is not a refusal signal, but it does mean the file needs complete, translated documentation from the outset: recent payslips or accounts, a clear statement of existing debts, and a health declaration completed honestly and in full. Omissions discovered later, even innocent ones, can void a claim entirely under French insurance law, which makes accuracy at application far more valuable than a slightly lower declared risk.
French mortgage insurers generally cap cover at a specific age at the end of the loan term, commonly between 70 and 85 depending on the insurer and the guarantee selected. This creates a mechanical constraint for buyers purchasing later in life: a 60-year-old applying for a 20-year loan may find the death and disability cover priced very differently, or capped in amount, compared with the same loan taken at 40.
For buyers in this position, shortening the loan term, increasing the deposit to reduce the insured capital, or splitting cover so that only the highest-risk tranche of the loan carries full disability guarantees, are all standard structuring options a broker can model before an application is submitted. None of these require a fixed answer at the outset; they are simply worth pricing against each other before signing.
Since 2022, the Lemoine law removed the health questionnaire entirely for loans under 200,000 euros per insured person where the loan is fully repaid before the borrower’s sixtieth birthday. Outside that threshold, the questionnaire remains standard and covers declared medical history, current treatments, height and weight, tobacco use, and any past serious illness. Cancer survivors also benefit from the droit à l’oubli (« right to be forgotten »), which since 2022 allows certain past cancers to go undeclared after five years from the end of treatment, down from the previous ten, provided there has been no relapse.
For a non-resident applicant, the practical takeaway is to check the 200,000 euro per-person threshold before assuming a full medical file will be required. A couple borrowing 380,000 euros jointly, for example, sits under 200,000 euros per person and may qualify for the simplified route with no health questionnaire at all, subject to the age-at-repayment condition.
A mortgage insurance quote is not comparable on price alone. Before deciding, request the same four figures from every insurer under consideration:
A policy that looks 15 percent cheaper on the headline premium but defines disability more strictly, or excludes a condition relevant to the borrower, is not actually the better deal. This is where a broker who reviews contracts for a living earns their fee, and where borrowers acting alone most often lose money without realising it.
Nothing in this guide constitutes personalised financial, insurance, or legal advice, and it should not be read as a recommendation for any specific lender, broker, or insurer. French Mortgage Advice is an independent information resource for international buyers navigating the French property finance market: it is not a bank, not a credit intermediary, and not a registered insurance broker. Anyone selecting a mortgage insurance contract in France should verify the registration of any broker or intermediary they engage directly on the ORIAS public register, and confirm any insurer’s standing with the ACPR, before signing.
Can I keep my home country’s life insurance instead of taking French mortgage insurance?
No. French lenders require a policy that specifically guarantees the loan and is written to French insurance law, with the lender named as beneficiary up to the outstanding capital. A separate personal life policy from your home country does not satisfy this condition.
Does switching insurer after completion affect my mortgage rate?
No. Since the Lemoine law, a lender cannot alter the interest rate or any other loan condition as a consequence of you switching to a different, equivalent insurance contract.
How long does it take to switch insurer on an existing French mortgage?
The lender has ten business days from receipt of a complete substitution request to accept or give a reasoned refusal. In practice, well-prepared files with equivalent guarantees are rarely refused.
Related reading: Expat and non-resident mortgages in France · How French mortgage rates work · Buying property in France: the complete process · Financing a French rental investment · Refinancing a French mortgage · French mortgage and property glossary
Sources and further reading: Loi Lemoine, Legifrance · Crédit immobilier, Service-Public.fr · Banque de France, taux d’usure · ORIAS, registre des intermédiaires · ACPR, Assurance-Banque-Épargne Info Service