BNP Paribas Cardif’s commitment: inclusive insurance, a comprehensive and continuously improving approach

A World leader in creditor protection insurance, BNP Paribas Cardif has been committed for the past 15 years to an inclusive approach concerning its insurance offering. From product design to the continuous reassessment of accessibility criteria, Myriam Jlidi, Head of Actuarial Pricing Protection  Department at
BNP Paribas Cardif in looks back at the fundamentals of an approach driven by strong social and societal responsibility.

What is inclusive insurance?

It means being able to offer an insurance solution to as many people as possible. Beyond this definition, for us, inclusiveness is a comprehensive approach that considers a wide range of criteria, from product design to the customer journey in the event of a claim. One of the first criteria is, of course, price, since inclusiveness  means that our products must be affordable although this notion is highly relative.
 
We firmly believe that affordable insurance is an insurance that properly fits the real needs of policyholders and that is adjustable where necessary. We, therefore, regularly conduct surveys among different customer profiles to understand their main concerns as well as the barriers they may face when taking out a policy. We also develop educational tools to help our customers, understand the level of protection required to preserve their household’s financial balance in the event of life’s uncertainties, based on their personal circumstances.
 
We also favour “modular” insurance solutions, built around a core set of essential guarantees for example death cover to which additional, activatable and customisable coverages can be added by the clients depending on needs and budgetary constraints. This modularity enables us to be inclusive both in terms of cover (by offering appropriate protection tailored to risk profiles) and in terms of price (by avoiding unnecessary or superfluous options). It is essential to act on all these levers for the impact to be real and sustainable.
 
Beyond pricing, what other areas do you focus on to offer inclusive insurance?

We pay very close attention to the clarity of our products and the seamlessness of our customer journeys. We make sure that our offers are clear, transparent and understandable for all our customers. In practical terms, this means using accessible contractual language, being pedagogical about the exact scope of the guarantees and implementing streamlined processes both at the point of subscription and when managing claims. For example, at subscription stage, we offer simplified and personalised health questionnaires based on the guarantees taken out.

How has this ambition for inclusiveness changed your creditor insurance offering?

One of the main obstacles to access to creditor protection is the existence of aggravated health risks. We continuously adapt our pricing models, to take medical advances into account, and go beyond regulatory requirements whenever our financial balance allows us to do so. Medical research is progressing, and insurance must reflect these advances.

For example, in 2022 we revised our pricing criteria for chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD)¹, which affect 700,000 people in France, considering new treatments that make it possible to stabilise the condition. Since this revision, the proportion of insured individuals with IBD who can benefit from standard coverage conditions has quadrupled, which represents a real and significant impact for our customers. Since then, two further initiatives to revise pricing conditions have followed, covering HIV in 2024 and breast, prostate and testicular cancers in 2025.

How do you bring together these two worlds, insurance and medical research, which at first glance seem very different?

We work in close collaboration with specialists in relevant pathologies. Their expertise enables us to reassess our risk evaluation criteria and translate medical advances into actuarial pricing rules. It was at a conference on developments in IBD treatments that we first contacted an expert professor to revisit our pricing approach.

After a year of working alongside him, we updated our conditions in favour of policyholders affected by this condition, by acting on two main levers. Firstly, a review and simplification of medical questionnaires to better assess risk while reducing the burden on customers. And secondly, a complete overhaul of our pricing combinations, taking into account the positive impact of new treatments.

Choosing inclusion also has a cost in terms of risk and financial stability for insurers. How do you manage this impact?

Indeed, undermining the financial balance of our portfolios would be counterproductive, which is why we have made a dual choice. First, to maintain the fundamental principle of risk pooling to offer affordable insurance to as many people as possible. Secondly and perhaps most importantly, we have established that this inclusive approach, particularly to aggravated health risks, must be partially borne by the insurer.

From an actuarial perspective, the real challenge is to achieve the most accurate possible assessment of the risk taken, to build reliable scenarios and strike the right balance between a tangible benefit for the customer and an insurance risk that remains under control.

What does this mean in practical terms?

It means accepting a sensible reduction of our margins, while remaining vigilant in preserving the financial balance of our portfolios to ensure the long-term viability of these initiatives. To achieve this, we carry out multiple simulations to anticipate both customer and financial impacts, followed by downstream monitoring of the expected improvements and their effect on claims experience and financial balance. This work is essential, as we never roll back a measure once it has been implemented.

Today, we can be proud of maintaining this balance while becoming always more inclusive. Our initiatives benefit all our customers within the framework of creditor protection, with no distinction between collective and individual products. This acceptance of reduced margins has, for example, enabled us to go further than the provisions of the AERAS² Convention for customers living with HIV or affected by cancer, by significantly easing the criteria for accessing borrower insurance without premium surcharges or exclusions.

For patients who have overcome breast cancer, 75% to 80% of them now benefit from standard pricing, compared with 50% before our criteria were revised. This represents savings of several thousand euros over the total duration of the policy. These very tangible results encourage us to continue building on this momentum and to make our insurance offering increasingly inclusive. This approach of continuous improvement is a source of pride for all our teams.

Discover how BNP Paribas Cardif facilitates access to creditor insurance for people who have overcome breast, prostate or testicular cancer.

^₁ Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC)

² The AERAS Convention (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 condition.