To cope with the increasingly heavy costs linked to climate risks, insurance prices should increase from “25 to 40 euros”, on average in 2025. An increase, which “remains reasonable, taking into account the challenges we face “, declares Nicolas Gomart, general director of the Matmut group.
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The Matmut group, themutual insurer, has 4.5 million members and manages 8,300,000 contracts. He published Tuesday April 23s financial results for 2023. And this past year has been the third most expensive, after 1999 and 2022, according to the Matmut press release.
If the year 2023 was so costly for insurers, it is “mainly because of the climatic events that we have experienced, which are certainly less severe than those we experienced in 2022, but which still represent the third costliest year in this area”explain Nicolas Gomart, general manager of the Matmut group, on franceinfo this Tuesday.
franceinfo: Are these natural disasters becoming routine?
Nicolas Gomart: Hopefully it doesn’t become so routine. But in fact, what we are observing is that we are seeing an increase in all these disasters, unfortunately, which are hitting our fellow citizens.
“Our professional federation, France Assureurs, estimates that over the next 30 years, the overall amount of these claims should double compared to the last 30 years.”
Nicolas Gomarton franceinfo
It is more expensive for general insurance, and for Matmut in particular, which effectively covers property which is subject to these climatic risks. At the same time, we have more claims, there are more of them, and the repairs are more expensive because inflation is high on these repairs.
The increase in the intensity and frequency of climatic events could translate into 70 billion euros in additional compensation in France over 30 years. And to finance our natural disaster plan, it is planned to increase the insurance premium. Concretely, how will this translate into my home insurance? ?
Today, this regime is extremely powerful because it is a very united regime for all French people. It is unique in Europe and costs approximately, on average, 25 euros per year per insurance. This amount should increase from 1er January 2025, approximately 40 euros per year, on average, per insurance. So, from 25 to 40 euros, that’s 15 euros more. Obviously, this is an increase, but it remains reasonable given the issues we face.
Is this enough to insure these climate risks?
We cannot predict the trajectory extremely precisely, but in any case, it is already an important step forward and should cover a good part of the evolution.
Your turnover is up 18% to almost 3 billion euros, driven by diversification. Does this mean that auto and home insurance, which is your core business, is over? ?
It’s not at all over and it’s also part of our business. These insurances continue to develop. But we, at Matmut, have always wanted to be as close as possible to our members – That’s what we call our customers. And so this diversification is part of a desire to cover as many insurance needs as possible for them.
“We started with cars, with homes. In recent years, we have developed the health insurance business with mutual health insurance. And more and more, we offer life insurance services , in terms of foresight.”
Nicolas Gomartfranceinfo
That’s really the objective, it’s to cover all of the insurance needs of our companies.
Except that this diversification represents an increasingly important part of your turnover. Are home insurance and car insurance ultimately less profitable than before?
It is no less profitable. It was never very profitable. We are not in extremely profitable businesses. We are in long-term businesses, supporting our members. However, what is important, given the uncertainties that weigh on these risks – we were talking about climate risk – for us as a company, is to diversify our risks and not put all our eggs in the same basket. And therefore also have diversified sources of income with other types of insurance.
Today, it is 24% of total turnover. Is this diversification likely to become a larger part of your turnover in the future?
Yes, absolutely, it should continue to increase. Our objective is that, ultimately, these so-called personal insurance products represent approximately half of our activity. Today, they represent 30%.
And with what share for health insurance and the rest of the activities ?
It’s difficult to say, but a priori health insurance could represent about a quarter of the activity and what we call life insurance, retirement insurance, the other quarter of the activity. .