Funeral Contracts: Strict Regulations Needed to End Misconduct
As All Saints' Day approaches, Unaf and UFC-Que Choisir are issuing a warning: funeral insurance contracts are experiencing significant issues, with overpricing, opaque fees, and a lack of transparency. Behind a product marketed as reassuring lies a highly profitable market for insurers, which can sometimes be disastrous for families. The associations are now calling for legal regulation of premiums and stricter oversight of advisory responsibilities.
What This Reveals
On the surface, funeral insurance contracts aim to relieve families of the administrative and financial burdens associated with funerals. In practice, many policyholders end up paying twice their guaranteed capital. According to data compiled by UFC-Que Choisir and Unaf, this rapidly growing market represents 1.8 billion euros in annual premiums, yet only 40% of these funds actually reach bereaved families. The imbalance is significant. Most contracts offered by insurers involve lifelong premiums, meaning payments continue until death, with no cap. An elderly policyholder might contribute over twenty years, eventually paying more than the guaranteed capital. With a lack of clear alternatives and insufficient cash surrender values, subscribers find themselves trapped: canceling the contract means losing nearly all the sums already paid. This issue is not marginal; currently, 32% of deaths in France are covered by funeral insurance. « We too often see policyholders who have paid twice the promised benefit, » laments UFC-Que Choisir, which is calling for the implementation of a legal cap to limit such excesses.
Why It Matters
Beyond the financial aspect, the entire duty of advice is at stake. The Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR) has repeatedly identified serious shortcomings: barely readable documents, confusing explanations about the difference between insurance and savings contracts, opaque surrender values, poorly explained waiting periods. These are all elements that prevent consumers from truly understanding the extent of their commitments. Families often encounter a bureaucratic nightmare following a death: slow activation of benefits, requirements to cover expenses upfront, and a lack of coordination between insurers and funeral service providers. The outcome is that the promised simplicity turns into a source of stress and unfairness.
In 2024, the Financial Sector Advisory Committee (CCSF) adopted several improvements: the creation of standardized tables showing the total contract cost by age, regulation of exclusions, reduction of the waiting period to twelve months, and improved visibility of surrender values. These are useful steps forward, but associations still consider them insufficient.
Calls for Legislative Regulation
For Unaf, only legislative intervention can restore balance. Neither the Insurance Code nor the Civil Code currently provides a mechanism to prevent excessive surcharges. The associations also call for strengthening the information obligation about alternative solutions: direct payment of funeral expenses by the deceased's bank (up to €5,910), recourse to social benefits, or corporate insurance policies.
The crux of the problem, according to Unaf, lies in the very logic of the sector: « Funeral insurance contracts are primarily designed as commercial products, not as guarantees serving families. » This is a criticism that regulators no longer openly dispute.
This content has been automatically translated using artificial intelligence. While we strive for accuracy, some nuances may differ from the original French version.
