How to join the AERAS agreement

What is the AERAS agreement?

The AERAS agreement (Insuring and Borrowing with an Aggravated Health Risk) aims to facilitate access to insurance and borrowing for people who have or have had a health problem.

It has been signed by public authorities, credit institutions, insurers and patient and consumer associations.

Am I concerned by the AERAS convention?

The AERAS agreement concerns you if you wish to take out a loan and your state of health does not allow you to obtain borrower insurance under the standard conditions of the insurance contract, i.e. without a rate increase or exclusion of guarantees.

The AERAS convention applies, under certain conditions, to the insurance of consumer, real estate and professional loans.

What does the AERAS agreement provide for consumer credit insurance?

You wish to obtain a consumer credit allocated to a specific purchase. The AERAS agreement provides in this case that you can benefit from death insurance without having to complete a health questionnaire, if the following conditions are met:

• you are at most 50 years old;
• the duration of the loan is less than or equal to 4 years;
• the cumulative amount of your credits falling into this category does not exceed 17,000 euros.

What does the AERAS agreement provide for the insurance of real estate or professional loans?

In the case of real estate and professional loans, the AERAS agreement provides that your insurance application may be examined at three possible levels, without you having to take any steps.

The insurance company first studies your file at a first level, and offers you, when possible, insurance under the standard conditions of the borrower contract. If it is not possible to make you an insurance proposal at the first level, because of your state of health, your file will automatically be examined at a second level by a specialized medical service.

At the end of this examination, if an insurance proposal cannot be drawn up, your file will be sent to a third level, still without intervention on your part, to the medical experts of a pool of insurers and reinsurers.
Your file will be studied at this third level if your insurance application meets the following conditions in particular:

• in the event of a loan for the acquisition of the principal residence, the amount of the loan does not exceed 420,000 euros. This amount does not take into account bridging loans.
  For other real estate and professional acquisitions, the cumulative amount of loans does not exceed 420,000 euros;
• it concerns an insurance contract which will expire before your 71st birthday.

A second or third level insurance proposal may give rise to a rate increase, which may be capped according to your income, or to an exclusion of cover.

The insurer informs you by mail of its decision. This letter also mentions the level of examination at which the refusal occurred as well as the contact details of the Mediation Commission of the AERAS agreement.

You can write to the insurer’s medical adviser, directly or through a doctor of your choice, to find out the medical reasons behind the insurer’s decision.

What are the provisions of the AERAS agreement concerning the invalidity guarantee?

For real estate and professional loans, the insurer offers, if requested by the borrower, either a disability guarantee under standard conditions, or a disability guarantee specific to the AERAS agreement.

If the insurer has not been able to offer you specific disability cover, it will offer you cover for the risk of total and irreversible loss of autonomy (PTIA).

What does the AERAS agreement provide for to limit the cost of insurance?

Increases in the insurance rate for credits intended to finance a principal residence or a professional project may be limited according to the conditions of resources of the insured.

This limitation applies to the insurance of mortgages and professional loans for an amount of less than 420,000 euros and whose maturity occurs before your 71st birthday.

You benefit from this device in the following cases:

If your household’s net taxable income is less than or equal to:	And that the number of shares in your tax household is:
1 times the social security ceiling (PSS)	1
1.25 times PSS	1.5 to 2.5
1.5 times PSS	3 and more

If you are concerned, the cost of your insurance will not represent more than 1.4 points of the annual effective annual rate (APR) of your loan.

Zero interest home loans (PTZ)

If you meet the income criteria above, you are eligible for the zero-rate loan and you are under 35, the increase in the insurance rate will be fully covered by insurers and credit institutions.

What is the “right to be forgotten”?

The right to be forgotten means that you do not have to declare a former cancer or former hepatitis C on the insurer’s medical questionnaire when applying for loan insurance, if your therapeutic protocol has been completed for more than 5 years and that no relapse has been observed.

The right to be forgotten therefore makes it possible to be insured under standard conditions within the usual framework of the processing of borrower insurance applications.

The right to be forgotten concerns the insurance of consumer loans allocated to a specific purchase, real estate loans and professional loans whose maturity arrives before your 71st birthday.

What are the provisions on the “reference grid” provided for by the AERAS convention?

The AERAS reference grid lists the pathologies (cancer pathologies and other pathologies, in particular chronic) for which, after a certain period adapted to each pathology, you can be insured for all death, invalidity and incapacity guarantees. , at the standard rate or under conditions approaching the standard conditions.

If you are concerned by a health problem mentioned in this grid, you must however declare the information relating to your state of health to your insurer.

The reference grid applies to the insurance of mortgages and professional loans for a maximum amount of 420,000 euros and whose maturity occurs before your 71st birthday.

This grid is completed and evolves over time according to medical advances.

If you are affected by a health problem mentioned in this grid, you will not have to fill out a health questionnaire and no medical examination will be requested by the insurer, if:

• your insured credits remaining to be repaid do not exceed 200,000 euros;
• and if the loan matures before your 60th birthday.

In all other cases, you will have to complete a health questionnaire, alone, on site or at home.

Is the confidentiality of medical information guaranteed?

The AERAS convention clearly affirms the obligation of confidentiality of personal medical information. This is why, when taking out the borrower’s insurance, it is proposed to complete the health questionnaire, alone, on site or at home, either on a paper questionnaire or through a secure computer procedure. . The health questionnaire includes specific questions about your state of health and in no way refers to intimate aspects of your private life.

When should you take steps to take out borrower insurance?

If you have or have had a health problem, it is in your best interest to take the necessary steps as soon as possible.

You can apply for insurance, either with your credit institution or with an insurer, as soon as you know the amount of your loan, its duration and its interest rate; even before having signed a promise of sale or completed your loan application. This will allow you to already have an insurance agreement when your real estate project is finalized.

Your insurer’s response will reach you within a period not exceeding three weeks from the time your file is complete. After being informed of your acceptance of the insurance proposal, your credit institution will have a maximum of two weeks to respond to your loan request. The bank’s professionals undertake to inform you in writing of any refusal of a loan whose sole origin is a refusal of insurance.

The insurance agreement is valid for 4 months, subject to a loan amount and duration less than or equal to the initial request.

Is it possible to choose your insurer?

Whatever the nature of your loan (real estate, professional or consumer), you can look for another insurance contract than that offered by the credit institution. The latter is required to accept it if the insurance offers a level of guarantees equivalent to that of the credit institution. This cannot lead to an increase in the credit rate.

What if no insurance solution is found?

If you have not been able to obtain insurance to guarantee your loan or the guarantees offered are insufficient, you can seek an alternative guarantee to replace the insurance and thus be able to carry out your project. It can be a personal guarantee such as a suretyship: a solvent person, called “the surety” undertakes vis-à-vis the credit institution to repay the loan in the event that the borrower does not repay it. not ; or a real guarantee such as a pledge of capital (for example, a life insurance policy) or a mortgage on real estate that you already own.
In all cases, it is the credit institution that assesses the value of this alternative guarantee.

What to do in case of litigation ?

If you feel that the mechanisms of the AERAS convention have not worked properly, you can appeal to the Mediation Commission of the AERAS convention.
This commission is responsible for examining individual complaints addressed to it. It facilitates the search for an amicable settlement of the cases referred to it.

Please note: this commission is not an appeal body on credit or insurance decisions.