After Irma's visit, some insurance companies terminated contracts and refused to renew others because they consider that the risk - or damage to be compensated - is too great.
Individuals who were not insured before Irma, were also refused afterwards. This mainly concerns dwellings located in so-called high-risk areas. Can companies terminate a contract? Can they refuse to provide housing? Explanations.
• Home insurance is it compulsory?
Unlike auto insurance, home insurance is not mandatory and a company is not required to accept you as a client. It is also free to fix the amount of the contract. Today in Saint-Martin and more generally in the Antilles, not all companies are represented; some only insure property and people in mainland France. Others refuse to insure a property located in metropolitan France to a person residing overseas if that person does not have a bank account domiciled in metropolitan France.
In the West Indies, the risk is therefore shared by a small number of companies.
On the other hand, it should be noted that the Alur law of 2014 imposed a new obligation in terms of insurance: the trustee and the co-owner must in fact take out civil liability insurance; companies should not therefore refuse them. RC is included in home insurance but can be purchased alone.
• What is the warranty natural disaster (CatNat)?
According to the Insurance Code, “insurance contracts, taken out by any natural or legal person other than the State and guaranteeing fire damage or any other damage to property located in France, (…) give rise to the right to guarantee of the insured against the effects of natural disasters ”. An event being considered as a natural disaster by ministerial decree published in the Official Journal of the Republic.
Insurance companies must therefore include this guarantee in contracts.
For information, the cost of overseas events represents 3,5% of the amount of the loss on the French market for only 1,8% of the contributions of the plan (the Overseas has been integrated into it only since 1990).
• The CatNat guarantee can it be refused?
Still according to the Insurance Code, an insurance company can refuse the guarantee to a person whose property is located on land classified as unbuildable by the natural risk prevention plan (PPRN) "with the exception, however, of property and activities existing prior to the publication of this plan ”.
By unbuildable area is meant an area where it will no longer be possible to build with the new PPRN; according to the reflections carried out by the local authorities will be concerned all the areas by the sea.
For existing goods, if the owner refuses to apply the recommendations of the PPRN within the time limit, the insurance company is not obliged to sell him a contract.
On the other hand, extending the CatNat guarantee to the contract does not apply to real estate constructed and to activities carried out in violation of administrative rules. However, insurance companies can only avoid this obligation when entering into or renewing the contract.
Finally, it should be noted that the zones where the sea level has been higher than one meter will be considered as zones with strong to very strong hazards, therefore, where the risk is the highest, therefore where the insurances could no longer accept to cover this risk. Besides the dwellings will also be concerned shops among which the agencies of certain insurance companies in Marigot.
• Is it possible to compel an insurance company?
There is a body in France which obliges a company to insure against the effects of natural disasters, this is the central pricing office (BCT) which "requires the insurance company concerned to guarantee" the person against these effects. . The “exclusive role” of the BCT is to set the premium that the company must apply to the person concerned. The procedure is valid only if the statutes of the insurance company do not prohibit it from assuming this risk.
When the risk is of particular importance or characteristics, the central pricing office may ask the insured to present to it, under the same conditions, one or more other insurers in order to distribute the risk between them.
The insurance company is obliged to apply the decision of the BCT at the risk of having its administrative approval withdrawn.
In addition, the prefect or the president of the central reinsurance fund (CCR) can apply to the BCT when the conditions under which a good or an activity benefits from the CatNat guarantee appear to them to be unjustified in view of the behavior of the insured or the 'absence of any precautionary measure likely to reduce the vulnerability of this property or activity.
>> New public meeting on the revision of the PPRN today at CCISM
Following the April 9 public meeting on the PPRN review, two new public meetings are planned:
Tuesday April 23 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the CCISM: Presentation of the mapping of the revised cyclonic hazard, the map of the issues and the zoning of the revised issues
Friday May 10 from 16 p.m. to 19 p.m. at the CCISM: Presentation of the regulatory zoning plan and the revised by-law for cyclonic hazards.
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