Sector braced for change as La Poste enters the non-life market

The French government’s ban on the distribution of non-life insurance products by the French postal services (La Poste ) expired in 2007. In April 2008 the finance minister confirmed that La Poste would be allowed to distribute insurances such as motor and household cover from January 1, 2009. One view is that this concession was made because, under another EU-required ruling, La Poste lost its quasi-monopoly of the profitable “Livret A” deposit accounts. The banking arm of La Poste has 17,000 distribution points, and training for bancassurance was expected to take a number of months. In spite of the general opposition from the non-life market, in 2008 it appeared that several of the largest participants had presented offers to La Poste for the underwriting of these risks.

At the end of 2007 the number of insurance companies authorised in France was 461, down from 504 at the end of 2001, with a further 939 licensed to operate under freedom of services as described below. Foreign companies are well represented in France, notably Allianz, Generali, Zurich, Winterthur,