Since the implementation of the AREAS agreement in January 2007, the impossibility of granting borrower insurance has not constituted a valid reason to reject a loan request from disabled people or having extremely fragile health. Lighting.
Anyone with a handicap, or a serious illness, has the right to live and consume as a “good shape” person. And this is even more true when the disease is the past. This is the message of the law applied since January 6, 2007, also called an agreement to “ensure and borrow with an aggravated risk of health” (Areas). Its success is dazzling: “In 2007, 400,000 requests presenting an aggravated risk of health were recorded, noted the French Federation of Insurance Companies. They focused on guarantees in the event of death and total and irreversible loss of autonomy, as well as on the invalidity guarantee for 68 % of them. In 92 % of cases, insurers proposed, at least for the risk of death.” One downside however: out of 7,200 requests relating to very aggravated risks, a little less 1,500 received an insurance proposal. Or just one in five requests.
Buy a house, a car …
The fact remains that there is a real advance in this device. A disabled person, sick, or formerly sick, can today buy accommodation for a maximum amount of 300,000 euros or finance the acquisition of an automobile up to 15,000 euros thanks to a borrowing. What was not possible before 2007. Discoveries and revolving credits are not, however, concerned. The end of this discrimination in access to credit is based on very specific rules, in particular the possibility of adding a surprise on the levels of real estate credits which cannot exceed by more than 1.5 points overall effective rate proposed in a “normal” case.
As with any credit, the person known as aggravated risks-that is to say having a stronger probability compared to the rest of the population to find themselves invalid or to die-must be solvent. If the credit deadlines seem difficult to refund due to lack of sufficient income, or because the share of debt is too high, the financial institution retains the right to refuse funding. On the other hand, the impossibility of granting borrower insurance is no longer a valid reason for a rejection.
Very limited and supervised sources of refusal
First, if the risk borrower has individual insurance which offers guarantees equivalent to those of borrower insurance associated with the loan contract, the credit institution cannot refuse the granting of the loan. Ditto if an insurance proposal has been accepted as part of another financing project. Three conditions must then be met: the sums requested and the borrowing period cannot be superior to the previous project; The proposal must have less than four months when assembling the credit file.
Then, if the borrower offers alternative guarantees to borrower insurance, such as a deposita mortgageA investment secure financial …, there too, the credit institution must give a favorable suite at the request of funding. The agreement even provides that it has a very active role in finding a solution of this type in order to overcome the absence of borrower insurance.
Finally, the loan request And its possible refusal must be notified within five weeks of their deposit with the credit institution. More specifically, the credit insurer’s response must take place within three weeks, and that of the credit institution within two weeks of the insurer’s opinion. The letter indicating the establishment’s decision must specify the postal contact details of the insurer’s doctor to allow the applicant to know the reasons for rejection to ensure the loan.
Seizure of a mediator in the event of a dispute of the reason for refusal
On the basis of this refusal, the loan applicant may seize the mediation committee in order to obtain an amicable settlement. On the sidelines of this commission, there are two other organizations which ensure the proper use of the agreement. On the one hand, there is the follow -up commission and proposals. It ensures the proper application of the system and can, if necessary, make recommendations to facilitate access to credit for sick or disabled people. On the other, a study and research commission is organizing statistical monitoring on the level of mortality for the main pathologies. This makes it possible to qualify the degree of so -called aggravated risk de facto established by insurers.
It should be noted that the AREAS agreement has also set up a confidentiality system. Thus, the borrower is certain that the customer advisor, to whom he submits his request for a credit, will not have access to information relating to his illness or his handicap.