Here is an excerpt from the message received from a leading pension institution:
“The Social Security Financing Act for 2026 introduces, through its article 13, an exceptional tax of 2.05% on supplementary health insurance, as well as a ban on supplementary health insurance from being passed on. This measure, widely publicized, is likely to generate questions from your clients. We understand these questions and are closely following the changes related to the Social Security financing law.
At this stage, the precise implementation of the legal provisions is still being clarified. The exceptional tax has not been included in the increases communicated to your clients, as it was voted on after the setting of our 2026 rates.
A regulatory framework that raises questions in the sector
This message clearly reveals all the perplexity of the insurance world in front of this article of law, which is at the very least ‘bizarre’, and we will prove the article in question here.
And in particular the paragraph that gives rise to debate: “For the year 2026, the amount of these contributions cannot be increased compared to that applicable for the year 2025.”
One could have expected a clumsy sentence indicating ‘The insurers cannot pass on this tax’, which would have been ‘good luck’ by encouraging them not to change the rate during the annual due date.
But there, the scope of this article, as it is written, goes much further than this objective since it asks to fix the contributions for 2026 at the 2025 level. One can legitimately wonder what the logic is between a temporary tax and the prohibition to increase the rates of complementary health insurance, especially since this non-increase has no positive impact on the financing of social security.
Potentially weakened economic balances
Contributions increased by 4.3% on average for 2026 due to the expected simple drift in health spending. We can add to that between 2 and 3% of natural increase due to age on individual contracts, this means that insurers would suffer an average technical loss of approximately between 6 and 10% by combining all these effects.
If it were to apply as it is (I will come back to this later), it would put all the health insurance accounts in the red on quite colossal amounts (between 40 and 50Md€).
2027 in perspective: the hypothesis of a tariff catch-up
The catch-up for 2027 would then inevitably be terrible. Indeed, with the withdrawal of many reinsurers from this market (they can do it), the closure of many products and therefore a drastic reduction in competition, the insurers would have a panic reaction with increase rates for 2027 between 15 and 25% increased for retirees who would undergo double the age increase.
2027 being the year of the presidential elections, this allows us some animation on the subject…
This conclusion is the simple application of the most basic economic theory: when tariffs are no longer set by the law of supply and demand, a situation of scarcity is created. This is what we have seen in California, whose regulation limiting prices has drastically reduced the supply of home insurance and left many people without insurance.
For France, this shortage would lead to a cycle of increases in insurance costs for at least 2 or 3 years. It would be very expensive paid for (by the insured) for a bit of demagoguery in the short week.
Major operational and technical constraints
That’s the first problem. The other problem is: “How do we apply that?” The new 2026 tariffs were determined before the vote of the law. The PMSS (Monthly Social Security Ceiling), to which certain supplementary health insurance contracts are indexed, has itself increased and was set, at least in theory, well before that.
Most policyholders therefore received the amount of their reassessment before this law. Can the rate be changed retroactively? If yes, how are insurers supposed to do it? This would involve retroactive changes to all contracts and settings. Who among those whose information system does not allow it for technical or availability reasons? What sanctions? Will it be to the courts, on a case-by-case basis, who will have to declare the compensation? Will it be the ACPR or the DGCCRF that will intervene on the subject? It would therefore be a double burden: a considerable financial gap and an enormous IT and organizational load.
A legally fragile measure in the face of European law
Moreover, there is a major uncertainty about the very legality of this law. It seems in particular contradictory with the Council Directive 92/49/EEC of 18 June 1992 on the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to direct insurance other than life assurance. Italy has already been condemned for having tried to fix car insurance prices in 1995 (Court judgment of 25 February 2003).
Commission of the European Communities v Italian Republic. Failure of a State to fulfil its obligations – Directive 92/49/EEC – Tariff freedom and abolition of prior or systematic checks on tariffs and contracts. Case C-59/01).
To be read in particular: ‘Such legislation does indeed violate the principle of freedom of pricing referred to in Articles 6, 29 and 39 of that directive, which entails the prohibition of any system of prior or systematic notification and approval of the rates which an insurance undertaking proposes to use in its relations with policy holders.
A reform that could create more problems than it solves
In conclusion, this limitation makes no sense in the context of an efficient competitive market, but it is in the law and will certainly be a thorn in the government’s side, will not solve any problem for it, will be a hell to enforce and prepares him a bomb for the renewal of complementary health insurance in 2027.
Maybe this spine will be removed by a deus ex machina (constitutional council, European jurisdiction). In the meantime, everyone will be looking at each other like a tiled block while waiting for the first judicial decisions.
