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.

The Innovation Ambassadors program, which includes 5 winners among 102 innovative projects submitted from 24 entities worldwide in 2025, shows that innovation can be found everywhere at
BNP Paribas Cardif! 

My goal is to make sure that the product and its processes support the daily work of mortgage advisors. To do this, I work closely with colleagues from Sales, Legal, Compliance, and IT. I act as a link between the business, rules and regulations, and technology.

I am always looking for ways to improve the product and adjust it to the needs of customers and changes in the market. I also focus on using existing products and processes in a smart and efficient way. I see myself as a “spider in the web,” connecting people and ideas across the organization. On a personal level, i enjoy riding my gravel bike and making off-road day trips. It helps me relax and recharge.

Could you please introduce your initiative?

A Suretyship is an insurance service that works as a warranty and helps in the process of purchasing a home: at the time of sale, the seller requests from the buyer a penalty fee in case of future cancellation of the purchase. The buyer now can choose between:

• A deposit

or

• A Suretyship through a mortgage advisor 

Either option guarantees the financial penalty will be paid to the home seller, in case the transaction is cancelled by the home buyer due to financial reasons. 

We knew that in Belgium a 10% deposit is needed in the purchase process. And that it was common that buyers used their savings for the deposit. In case there were not enough savings they borrowed the deposit amount from friends or family. Or that they negotiate a lower deposit amount, which made their position as a potential buyer weaker and less interesting for the seller. With the Suretyship, the buyer can guarantee the 10% which gives them an advantage to buyers who must negotiate. And the buyer can use their savings for other things, such as kitchen or bathroom renovations. 

So, as buyers at the time did not have the opportunity to buy a Suretyship at all, or were even aware of the possibility, we checked what we had and what was possible and re-used our ‘Dutch’ Suretyship to launch this product in Belgium. This is fully in line with our mission to make insurance more accessible.

How does your initiative correspond to the category you won: Best Innovation Reuse?

Our initiative won the “Best Innovation Reuse” category of the Innovation Ambassadors because we re-used an existing BNP Paribas Cardif product in the Netherlands, adapting the processes and administrations system to introduce and sell our product in another country, Belgium.

Prospects were not familiar with the Suretyship in Belgium. A standard was that the buyer himself paid the deposit out of his own funds. With this insurance, we have a unique offer for the Belgian home buyer.

What are the next steps for your initiative? 

In the next steps, we will expand our broker partnerships in Belgium, expand our distribution channel with real estate brokers, and raise awareness among stakeholders like notaries.

What are your tips for innovating at BNP Paribas Cardif?

Innovation is exciting and gives energy. Use that energy to:

• Share your ideas. Test them inside and outside the company to see if they really help your target group. Clearly explain the value of your idea.
• Create support. Make sure others in the company understand and support your idea.
• Do good research. Talk to customers and check laws, rules, and market trends.
• Look beyond the usual way of working. Be open to new paths and solutions.
• Keep your end goal in mind. Stay focused and avoid distractions.
• Start small. Less is more. Celebrate small successes to keep people motivated.
• Keep the team small. Make sure everyone feels responsible for the project.
• Set a clear timeline. A clear time plan helps keep the team focused and involved.

Launching a product is only the first step. The experience you gain helps you improve the product and the process. Innovation never stops. Stay open to learning and change.

After fighting illness, you shouldn’t have to fight for your mortgage insurance.

People who have been affected by breast, prostate or testicular cancer can take out a loan insurance policy without additional premiums or exclusions, even before the legal period of 5 years set by the “right to be forgotten”.

BNP Paribas Cardif makes insurance more accessible

Creditor insurance guarantees the repayment of a loan in the event of death, disability, incapacity for work and/or loss of employment whether the loan is linked to a real estate project, or to a personal or professional project.
For many years, BNP Paribas Cardif’s priority has been to better cover its policyholders and protect them against life’s accidents while enabling them to carry out their real estate project.

Today, a person who has overcome breast, prostate or testicular cancer can benefit, as soon as active cancer treatment is over and in the absence of other pathologies, from a rate without additional premiums or exclusions, for loans up to 1 million euros. This approach applies to all creditor insurance contracts distributed in France.

Through this initiative, BNP Paribas Cardif is strengthening access to insurance for the most vulnerable people, and reaffirming its commitment to more accessible and inclusive insurance.

When medicine progresses, so do our insurance contracts.

BNP Paribas Cardif relies on scientific and medical advances and works every day to make insurance more accessible. We adapt our model and actively collaborate with the research community and medical experts to adjust our offers and underwriting conditions.

For more than 15 years, BNP Paribas Cardif has implemented concrete measures in France to facilitate access to creditor protection insurance, supported by scientific and medical advances. These initiatives already benefit people with asthma, Parkinson’s disease, gestational diabetes, paraplegia, tetraplegia or inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis. Since December 2024, this facilitated access has also been extended to people on HIV treatment whose viral load is undetectable at the time of subscription

For more information on BNP Paribas Cardif’s creditor insurance, you can contact your BNP Paribas advisor, a broker, a wealth management advisor or visit the Cardif.fr website.

Read the press release : BNP Paribas Cardif facilitates property ownership for prostate, testicular or breast cancer survivors – BNP Paribas Cardif.

Advertising communication. Cardif Assurance Vie, SA Capital 719 167 488 €, RCS Paris 732 028 154. Cardif Assurance Risques Divers, SA capital 21 602 240 €, RCS Paris 308 896 547. Entreprises régies par le code des assurances, 1 boulevard Haussmann 75009 PARIS.

Our new video series, Inside The Action, shines a spotlight on key initiatives led by BNP Paribas Cardif employees in France and internationally.

We give a voice to those who embody the values of commitment and innovation in their daily work at BNP Paribas Cardif. Each episode delves into the heart of these collective achievements and highlights those who actively contribute to the company’s ongoing transformation.

In this third episode, Julie Varin, Head of Internal Mobility at BNP Paribas Cardif in France) and Deise Nogueira, Head of corporate actuarial pricing P&C at BNP Paribas Cardif, explain why internal mobility is a key topic for the company, and how it is supported by the Human Resources teams at BNP Paribas Cardif.

HR teams are mobilized to offer each employee the right information, tools and support to help them make their project a reality and make it a real lever for career development.

For BNP Paribas Cardif and more generally for the BNP Paribas Group, a dynamic internal job market thanks to internal mobility makes it possible to meet the challenges of the business and tomorrow by enabling employees to have the right skills, at the right time and in the right place

Julie and Deise explain more in the following video:

Let’s look back at the year 2025:

A year marked by the satisfaction of our partners, as evidenced by Partner Survey, renewed in 2025, by strategic partnerships such as the one with Stellantis Financial Services and the acquisition of AXA Investment Managers.

The past year has also been an opportunity to innovate by focusing on artificial intelligence, with the CarBoosting solution in Chile, which generates personalised quotes in real time from customer data, or Call Analyzer in Germany, which automatically analyzes customer exchanges.

Other new products have been launched, including the “everyday risks” insurance product in Central Europe, which helps to increase customer satisfaction by insuring them against new risks, and SWEET in the Nordic countries, which allows customers to take out creditor insurance in a simpler way.

In 2025, BNP Paribas Cardif has also made strong commitments, to facilitate access to creditor insurance for people who have overcome breast, prostate or testicular cancer and people being treated for HIV in France and Belgium and has also implemented measures to simplify the claims management process in Turkey.

Find many more projects in this retrospective video.

Building on a philanthropy partnership initiated in 2023, BNP Paribas Cardif supports the Institut Imagine, the leading European centre for genetic disease research, education and care, located on the campus of the Necker-Enfants Malades children’s hospital in Paris. This partnership is designed to support medical research to increase the number of patients who are diagnosed and treated. The project encompasses support for research to accelerate medical innovation, as well as support for the Institute’s teams and promotion to help extend its impact.

Accelerating therapeutic discoveries and helping researchers advance with their projects 

Rare diseases affect nearly three million people in France, and 80% of the cases are genetic in origin[1]. These diseases represent a major public health challenge. Given their complexity and diversity, it is essential to deploy active support for innovation designed to transform scientific breakthroughs into concrete solutions for patients and families. Structuring projects thus plays a decisive role in driving the transition from laboratory to real-world applications. To address this need, BNP Paribas Cardif supports the Institut Imagine’s Springboard program, an accelerator focused on high-potential projects. In addition to financial support, the insurer works with project sponsors to help consolidate their strategy, anticipate key development milestones and prepare a framework for the launch of innovative startups. These startups spearhead the transformation of research advances into concrete solutions that benefit patients.

BNP Paribas Cardif for example took part in funding for VISIONERVES and in the creation of its dedicated startup Replico. This AI-augmented medical imaging solution, which stems from the research work of Professor Sabine Sarnacki, automatically generates a 3D “digital twin” of the patient and enables precise visualization of nerve structures. The tool aims to facilitate the preparation of surgical procedures and improve care for children who undergo surgery[2]. The insurer also supported the development of AIDY, an AI-based app for diagnosing genetic diseases using patient facial photos, the result of a collaborative research project led by Doctor Nicolas Garcelon and Doctor Hossein Khonsari. In addition, the partnership led to funding for the startup EpiCure Biotechnologies, built on research by Doctor Laurence Legeai-Mallet centred on therapeutic innovation for bone diseases. In addition to its involvement in Springboard, BNP Paribas Cardif provides support for other medical research projects, in particular related to chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD).   

[1] Source: French Ministry of Health and Prevention

[2] Winner of the 2023 Prix Galien award for pharmaceutical research and innovation

Supporting teams to broaden the impact of the Institut Imagine

Alongside its financial support, BNP Paribas Cardif works directly with Institut Imagine teams to help them manage and promote their projects. Staff from the company have shared their expertise with several startups incubated by the Institute to sharpen investor pitches, promote projects and raise funds. By regularly leveraging networking opportunities across its ecosystem, BNP Paribas Cardif also helps boost awareness of genetic diseases among partners, clients and staff, promoting the important role played by the Institut Imagine. These efforts are essential to heightening the Institute’s visibility.

“As a responsible insurer, we take great pride in supporting these research initiatives to improve the diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases, and we are delighted to see the first startups emerge and ramp up to market solutions created thanks to this backing. In addition to projects incubated as part of the Springboard program, we also support Institut Imagine research on specific pathologies, enabling us to continually make insurance more accessible. We believe it is essential to make our insurance offers even more inclusive by taking medical advances into account,” says Nathalie Doré, Chief Impact and Innovation Officer,
BNP Paribas Cardif.

“BNP Paribas Cardif is much more than a patron for Institut Imagine, they are a strategic partner whose long-term commitment is decisive for the future of genetic disease research. A partnership such as this is absolutely essential in our field because it allows us to make progress we could not achieve alone. Thanks to their unwavering support for several years already, we have been able to transform our discoveries into real-world therapeutic innovations, notably through our Springboard accelerator and the creation of deeptech startups. This alliance has given us the resources to significantly accelerate our impact for millions of families who are waiting for solutions,” states Bana Jabri, Director of Institut Imagine.

Emmanuel Gendreau has been appointed Director of BNP Paribas Epargne & Retraite Entreprises, effective from 5 January 2026. He succeeds Nicolas Villet, who has been appointed Director of the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region at BNP Paribas Cardif. Emmanuel Gendreau joins the executive committee of BNP Paribas Cardif France and will report to Charlotte Chevalier, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of BNP Paribas Cardif Head of France and Luxembourg.

BNP Paribas Epargne & Retraite Entreprises is the entity specialising in corporate savings solutions (employee savings and collective retirement savings), co-managed by
BNP Paribas Asset Management for financial management, and BNP Paribas Cardif for insurance activities. At the end of 2024, the company managed
€30.2 billion in assets for 26,000 businesses and for 1.6 million savers.

Our new video series, Inside The Action, shines a spotlight on key initiatives led by
BNP Paribas Cardif employees in France and internationally.

We give a voice to those who embody the values of commitment and innovation in their daily work at BNP Paribas Cardif. Each episode delves into the heart of these collective achievements and highlights those who actively contribute to the company’s ongoing transformation.”

In this second episode, Jérôme Sarrail, Analytics Manager at BNP Paribas Cardif, and Martin Nash, Chief Data & Analytics Officer at BNP Paribas Cardif in Germany, explain how artificial intelligence can enhance customer experience through in-depth analysis of telephone conversations with customers. It is a valuable tool for our sales teams.

Our “Call Analyzer” solution, entirely developed in-house, was first deployed in Peru and Colombia in 2024, and is now live in Germany. This is a powerful tool that allows us to detect client needs and optimise the commercial discourse of our internal teams.

Jérôme and Martin present the solution in the following video as well as the next developments of this project.

Each year, BNP Paribas Cardif’s Innovation team carries out a massive sourcing campaign across all BNP Paribas Cardif regions & domestic markets to identify projects that are ready for public communication that could be candidates for Innovation Ambassadors. The ultimate goal of this program is to reward outstanding teams, spread innovation culture and increase our company’s efficiency through re-use.

This year, we received 102 proposals from 24 entities across BNP Paribas Cardif worldwide, which is a testament to the strength and diversity of our innovation culture.

From these, 19 initiatives were nominated in July. After careful evaluation, our grand jury composed of Stanislas Chevalet, Nathalie Doré, Christelle Pailles, Vivien Berbigier, and Michael De Toldi, selected 5 outstanding initiatives as this year’s Innovation Ambassadors.

What’s new this year?

This year, winners were chosen according to categories that reflect our company’s value proposition and strategic priorities:

The initiatives selected this year are truly exceptional and showcase the transformative power of innovation at BNP Paribas Cardif. They illustrate how forward-thinking solutions can:

• Drive growth and scale to new markets
• Harness the potential of AI in diverse ways
• Make insurance more accessible according to our mission

Stay tuned to learn more about each of our 5 Innovation Ambassador initiatives in the coming months.

Actuaries are central to BNP Paribas Cardif’s value proposition. These “insurance engineers” contribute across the entire value chain: from product development to risk selection and profitability assessment.

With key technical skills, actuaries are well-positioned to leverage the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence, while remaining aware of its limitations and associated risks. Data is at the heart of everything we do in actuarial science at BNP Paribas Cardif. It fuels our decisions, improves customer experience, and stimulates innovation.

The DaaS (Data as a Service) initiative defines best practices for data management in actuarial work across Protection and Property & Casualty. It has significantly reduced the implementation time for machine learning models from 5 months to just 1 week.

Explore a real-world example of collaboration between the corporate Actuarial Analytics team and the actuarial team in BNP Paribas Cardif in Turkey with Anat CHEFNER – Head of Actuarial Analytics, BNP Paribas Cardif.

Discover in this video, the shared strategic vision of the Executive Committee members:

• Charlotte Chevalier – Chief Executive Officer of EMEA, BNP Paribas Cardif, during this project.
• Vivien Berbigier – Chief Value Proposition Officer, BNP Paribas Cardif
• Cemal Kısımır – CEO, BNP Paribas Cardif in Turkey

Listen to the partner’s perspective shared by Guillaume de Riberolles.