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Buying in France · Foreign and non-resident buyersBorrower insurance on a French mortgage: what foreign buyers are not told
If you are buying property in France with a French mortgage, the bank will ask you to insure the loan. Most foreign buyers treat this as a formality and accept whatever the bank puts in front of them. It is usually the second largest cost of the loan after interest, the rules governing it changed again this September, and the policy you sign decides who repays the debt if you cannot.
Why the bank insists on cover it is not obliged to demand
French law does not make borrower insurance compulsory. Lenders make it compulsory in practice, and the loan offer must state whether it is a condition of the credit. It always is.
The reason is simple. A mortgage runs twenty or twenty-five years, and the bank is lending against a life as much as against a property. Borrower insurance repays the outstanding capital if you die, and covers the instalments if illness or an accident stops you working.
What the policy actually covers
Two guarantees are standard on every French mortgage. Death repays the insured share of the outstanding capital to the bank. Total and irreversible loss of autonomy, known as PTIA, does the same when the borrower can no longer perform the ordinary acts of daily life without assistance.
Beyond those two, contracts diverge, and this is where identical looking policies stop being identical.
Temporary incapacity
Temporary incapacity, ITT, pays the instalments during a period of sick leave. The definition matters more than the amount. Some policies cover the inability to carry out the profession stated when you signed. Others cover only the inability to carry out any professional activity at all, which narrows the guarantee to a handful of extreme situations.
Permanent disability
Permanent disability, IPT and IPP, pays when the incapacity becomes lasting. The amount depends on a disability rating, and the rating depends on a scale written into the general conditions. A scale that measures physical impairment alone, and one that crosses impairment with the inability to practise your own occupation, produce very different outcomes for the same accident.
The quotité, and the arithmetic couples get wrong
When two people borrow together, each is insured for a percentage of the loan. That percentage is the quotité, and the two must add up to at least one hundred per cent. Banks often ask for more.
A fifty-fifty split is the default that nobody questions. It means that if one borrower dies, the insurer repays half the outstanding capital and the survivor keeps paying the other half, alone, on one income. Couples with unequal earnings often want a different split, and almost nobody raises the subject at signature.
The health questionnaire, and the two conditions that remove it
Since the Lemoine law, the medical questionnaire disappears when two conditions are met at the same time. The share insured by each borrower must not exceed two hundred thousand euros, and repayment must end before that borrower turns sixty.
Both conditions are cumulative, and each word matters.
The threshold applies per borrower, not per loan. A couple borrowing four hundred thousand euros with an even split insures two hundred thousand euros each, and both stay under the ceiling. This surprises buyers who assume the loan amount is what counts.
The age condition removes a large share of foreign buyers on its own. Anyone buying a French home in their fifties, which is common for a second residence, will still be repaying after sixty and will fill in the questionnaire.
One change is very recent. Since the first of September 2026, only mortgage loans count towards the two hundred thousand euro threshold. Consumer credit, professional loans and other financing no longer enter the calculation, which brings some borrowers back under the ceiling who were above it in August.
What changes when you live outside France
Living abroad changes the pricing and the process rather than the product.
Brokers report a loading of roughly forty to sixty per cent on premiums for non-residents. The figure is not published centrally and varies by insurer, but the direction is consistent, and it is large enough to be worth a comparison rather than a shrug.
Medical underwriting is conducted in French, on French forms, and any examination or record from your own country will need translating. Build time into the schedule for this, because it sits on the critical path between the loan offer and the signature at the notary.
Some insurers restrict cover by country of residence, and a few decline residents outside the European Economic Area altogether. This is a question to ask before the file is built rather than after it comes back.
You are not obliged to take the bank's policy
The bank will offer its own group contract, priced on a pooled basis, and it is entitled to require an equivalent level of cover. It is not entitled to require its own product.
You may take a policy from another insurer, and since the Lemoine law you may switch at any point in the life of the loan, with no anniversary date to wait for. The bank checks equivalence against a fixed list of criteria, and it must give you the list it has selected before it examines your file. Ask for that list first. Everything else follows from it.
Five checks before you sign
- Read the definition of temporary incapacity, and confirm it refers to your own occupation rather than any occupation.
- Find the disability scale in the general conditions, and see whether it crosses physical impairment with professional incapacity.
- Check the age at which each guarantee stops, against the final repayment date of your loan.
- Look at the exclusions, in particular back conditions, psychological conditions and any sport you actually practise.
- Discuss the quotité split rather than accepting fifty-fifty by default, and ask what the survivor would owe.
None of this takes long. It costs a great deal more to discover it during a claim than during a signature.
Thresholds, criteria and market practice are revised periodically. Confirm the current position with your lender, your insurer or a registered broker before you commit. This article is informational and is not personal insurance or credit advice.
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I write for brokers, agencies and comparison sites, in English and in French. Bank adviser by trade, IAS Level 3 certified.
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