Insurance companies.

Insurance companies.

When carrying out a public contract, we do not mention “insurance companies”, “mutual societies” or “provident institutions”, but risk carriers for greater simplicity in the processing of applications. . There are five legal forms of risk carriers which are:

Public limited liability insurance companies [28] are for-profit commercial companies with trader status [29]. As such, they are dependent on the Commercial Code and the Insurance Code. Profits are managed by shareholders.

Mutual insurance companies are not-for-profit civil societies [30]. Profit sharing by shareholders does not happen freely. The profits made must be used first for building up regulatory reserves and provisions as well as for the repayment of loans and only then for the remuneration of shareholders. This is the mutual side.

European companies (eg Aviva Europe, Macif Vie, Allianz, etc.) are insurance companies from several European countries which have merged together in a logic of "branching". It can also be a national company which decides to take on a European character. They are subject to European Community regulation n ° 2157/2001 of the Council of October 8, 2001, to the Commercial Code and to the Insurance Code.

Mutuals (eg Groupama, MMA, GMF, etc.) are non-profit civil societies [31] submitted to the civil judge. The activities of the mutual insurance company are limited to covering bodily risks (illness and accident), marketing capitalization insurance, preparing the defense of its policyholders through legal protection, carrying out assistance missions, and practicing unemployment insurance. The mutual company cannot therefore market pay-as-you-go insurance (or bodily insurance, assistance, unemployment and legal protection). By virtue of the principle of specialization, the same mutual company cannot carry out capitalization risk coverage missions and distribution risk coverage missions (bodily insurance, legal protection, assistance and unemployment). Mutuals are subject to the Mutual Code.

The provident institutions (ex AG2R La Mondiale, Klesia, Malakoff Médéric, etc.) are private non-profit legal entities. The originality of these institutions is their joint management, made up of half of employer representatives and half of employee representatives. They only market capitalization insurance, unemployment insurance and personal insurance. According to the principle of specialization, the same provident institution cannot market both funded insurance and unemployment insurance [32]. Provident institutions depend on the Social Security Code.

These different companies have the obligation to apply for authorizations to market their contracts. These are approvals (see below). They must also respect prudential solvency rules (Solvency 2), i.e. have a minimum capital which will depend on the premiums collected by each company [33] and which will allow them not to go bankrupt in the event of new crises. financial.

We can note that French companies have equity capital that exceeds the thresholds imposed by the regulations in force.

That’s why we don’t use the term intermediary but proxy.

The term "mandate" in insurance is associated with two professions, which are the general insurance agent and the insurance broker.

Life insurance is a savings product that is marketed by companies that have the necessary licensing. They can be mutual companies, insurers or provident institutions. This multiplicity of candidates reinforces the idea that it is not the company that matters but what it does with its products, how it makes them more virtuous and how it protects its employees and policyholders in practice.

Insurance operations are divided into 26 branches [34], for example branch n ° 1 is the branch of accident insurance, branch n ° 4 is the branch of body insurance for rail vehicles, etc.

Companies cannot market all existing contracts, they can only market insurance contracts of the branches for which they have received approval [35].

It is the Prudential Control and Resolution Authority, known as the ACPR, which issues these approvals.

The company authorized to market insurance of the branch may market insurance contracts that belong to a branch ancillary to this branch [36].

But to market credit, surety and legal protection contracts