The 10th edition of VivaTech, Europe’s leading event dedicated to technology and start-ups, took place in Paris from 17-20 June, 2026.

For BNP Paribas Cardif, this new edition was the opportunity to connect with the global innovation ecosystem, with the ambition to explore and engage in discussions around the technologies that will shape the future of insurance and better meet our partners’ and their clients’ needs.

Over the course of these four days, our guests (partners and employees) had the opportunity to engage with entrepreneurs, decision-makers and experts on today’s key technological challenges, such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, healthcare and digital sovereignty.

What to take away from BNP Paribas Cardif’s presence at Vivatech ? 🚀

BNP Paribas Cardif led two keynote sessions which allowed the insurer to showcase its expertise in artificial intelligence and power to transform insurance and banking services.

An AI at the service of financial advice

One of the key takeaways from this talk: AI is not replacing humans, it is empowering them. Through automation and data analysis, advisors can save time, reduce errors and focus more on what truly matters: supporting clients and understanding their needs.

This partnership between BNP Paribas Cardif and Ploovers also highlights the importance of balancing:
⚡ the agility and innovation of a startup
🏛️ the robustness and expertise of a leading global insurer
🤝 a shared ambition to create greater value for clients

A fascinating discussion on practical, responsible and human-centered AI.

Concrete use cases throughout the customer journey

AI is no longer just another technology feature; it is reshaping the way financial institutions operate, serve customers, fit partners needs and adapt to evolving expectations as Agentic AI is fundamentally transforming their communication and consumption patterns.

The innovation challenges of tomorrow’s insurance?

👟 The Cardif Lab’ organized several guided tours for different invited stakeholders (partners, management committee, directors or international top management), each time offering them personalized journeys. Among these visits, one of the highlights was the one organized for collaborators’ teenagers so they could discover innovation in a fun and inspiring way.

This guided tours explored some of the most inspiring innovations shaping the future of tech, AI and customer experience. It was such an inspiring moment to connect with emerging trends already transforming insurance:

👉 generative AI
👉 agentic AI
👉 large-scale automation
👉 new digital uses redefining customer expectations and distribution models


🏆 Our Innovation Ambassadors were honored with an award in recognition of their commitment to promoting innovation at BNP Paribas Cardif, it makes it even more meaningful, as there is no better place to celebrate innovation and the people driving it forward.

Why has AI become a strategic lever for BNP Paribas Cardif?

At BNP Paribas Cardif, we are convinced that artificial intelligence is a major opportunity to accelerate our transformation, strengthen the value we bring to our partners and customers, and simplify the everyday work for our teams.

With nearly 100 AI use cases already in production, we have built strong foundations to scale further. As an insurer, our ambition is clear: to position BNP Paribas Cardif as a leading player in cutting-edge, responsible and secure AI solutions.

This transformation builds on a long-standing commitment to enhancing customer experience through technology while maintaining the highest standards to meet growing expectations.

Because the human dimension is the heart of the insurance profession, AI is seen as a powerful enabler not a replacement.

A successful and meaningful event ✨
VivaTech 2026  was the occasion for BNP Paribas Cardif to:
✅ strengthen its positioning as an actor committed to innovation
✅ develop its relationships with tech ecosystems, start-ups and partners
✅ illustrate concretely how technology can improve the customer experience
✅ inspire employees and younger generations by opening the doors to innovation

Sébastien Dessillons has been appointed head of development at BNP Paribas Cardif and joins BNP Paribas Cardif’s Executive Committee effective from 1 July 2026. As part of the transformation and development department, his mission will be to strengthen BNP Paribas Cardif’s position as a world leader in bancassurance partnerships by enhancing partner engagement, developing a value proposition that leverages the opportunities
offered by artificial intelligence and fostering innovative partnerships.

He then joined the BNP Paribas Group in 2016, where he was responsible for the
coverage of a portfolio of major corporate clients. He later led the sector teams within the Group’s Corporate and Investment Banking division, first for Europe from 2019, then globally from 2023. In this role, he managed investment bankers specialized by economic sector and supported corporate and private equity clients in their strategic transactions, including M&A and related structured financing.

Sébastien Dessillons is a graduate of École Polytechnique (France) and is a Chief Engineer of the Corps des Mines (Paris).

BNP Paribas Cardif, the insurance company of the BNP Paribas Group, and the BCC Iccrea Group, the largest Italian cooperative banking group with 111 Credit Cooperative banks, today announced that BNP Paribas Cardif has acquired an additional 19% stake in the life insurance company BCC Vita increasing its total shareholding to 70%. The transaction falls within the framework of the agreements signed in 2023 and marks the natural evolution of a partnership that has already demonstrated solid foundations and strong results.

After BNP Paribas Cardif’s acquisition of 51% of BCC Vita, the two partners have jointly built an effective and distinctive bancassurance model, designed to meet customers’ evolving insurance needs. The additional
19% acquisition reflects a shared long-term vision and mutual trust that has been consolidated over time.

The BCC Iccrea Group network, strongly rooted throughout Italy, represents an effective distribution asset for BCC Vita, enabling it to deliver high quality insurance solutions to a broad and diversified customer base.

“This new milestone reaffirms our commitment to the BCC Iccrea Group and further strengthens BNP Paribas Cardif’s presence in the Italian life insurance market. Our partnership is built on a strong model that combines our ability to support the banking network with close collaboration between our teams and BCC Iccrea Group’s local network, helping us respond effectively to customers’ needs,” said Pauline Leclerc-Glorieux, Chief Executive Officer of BNP Paribas Cardif.

“This transaction is the concrete confirmation of the value of a strategic choice in which we deeply believe,” said Alessandro Deodato, Chief Executive Officer of BNP Paribas Cardif in Italy. “When we started the partnership in BCC Vita two years ago, we did it with a clear vision and with the intention of embarking on a stable and lasting path together. With this further acquisition, we reaffirm our long-term commitment to the BCC Iccrea Group, one of the pillars on which the growth of BNP Paribas Cardif in Italy is based”.

“We are particularly pleased with how we have launched our partnership with BNP Paribas Cardif, and today we are extending it to allow our 111 BCCs to continue offering their members and customers one of the most comprehensive and competitive ranges of products in the life insurance sector in Italy,” concluded Mauro Pastore, General Manager of the BCC Iccrea Group –.

“The development of this partnership, as set out in the agreements signed in 2023, demonstrates the soundness of the strategic plan we had devised in the interests of our BCCs, which will now have a longer timeframe to consolidate their relationships with their communities and establish themselves as a key point of reference in this sector too”.

Through this transaction, BNP Paribas Cardif reinforces its commitment to the Italian insurance market and bancassurance. It also confirms BCC Vita’s role as a strategic vehicle for business development in the life segment, thanks to the strength of the BCC Iccrea Group’s distribution network and to the daily collaboration to broaden the product offering, enhance the customer experience in an evolving market.

Building on its commitment to make insurance more accessible, especially for those affected by chronic or rare diseases, the insurer BNP Paribas Cardif is introducing new pricing for people with sickle cell anemia, the most common genetic disorder and the leading rare disease in France¹. This advancement improves access to insurance in terms of coverage and pricing for creditor insurance contracts of BNP Paribas Cardif in France, both for clients of the BNP Paribas banking network and for brokers, wealth management advisors, and directly online via Cardif.fr

A significant step forward for the inclusion of people with sickle cell anemia

About 7.7 million people worldwide² are affected by sickle cell anemia, a genetic disorder affecting red blood cells, representing a 40% increase in 25 years, including 30,000 people in France³. Those concerned often face difficulties accessing suitable credit protection insurance and are subject to premium surcharges on death and total and irreversible loss of autonomy guarantees, as well as significant exclusions on complementary guarantees, notably for work incapacity and disability.

Thanks to work carried out in collaboration with medical experts, BNP Paribas Cardif teams have developed a risk assessment that takes into account various therapeutic developments. This approach allows the insurer to improve pricing by more widely granting complementary guarantees and reducing surcharges. A new questionnaire is also introduced for insured people with sickle cell anemia to better understand the specifics of their condition.

When medicine advances, insurance evolves

Collaboration with the research community has enabled a better understanding of sickle cell anemia, its medical challenges, and its impact on patients’ quality of life. This initiative continues BNP Paribas Cardif’s actions for over 15 years to develop an inclusive offer, aiming to facilitate access to insurance solutions for people with rare or chronic diseases, such as inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD).

The insurer acts concretely to increase inclusion and access to creditor protection insurance. Among significant advances, BNP Paribas Cardif notably offers coverage without surcharge or exclusion to people treated for HIV, provided their viral load is undetectable at the time of subscription and to those who have overcome breast, prostate, or testicular cancer once the active therapeutic protocol is completed.

¹Drépanocytose · Inserm, La science pour la santé

² WHO issues first global guideline to improve pregnancy care for women with sickle cell disease [1] Épidémiologie de la drépanocytose en France et dans le monde | La Revue du Praticien

³ Épidémiologie de la drépanocytose en France et dans le monde | La Revue du Praticien

Joint mortgages are becoming an increasingly popular route to home ownership in Japan, but they expose couples to a structural gap: traditional mortgage CPI (Creditor Protection Insurance) typically protects only one borrower, leaving the other party’s repayments at risk if life takes an unexpected turn.

Shoichiro Fukushima, Group Leader of Promotion Planning in the Mortgage Loan Business Development Department at, Mortgage Loan business Unit at PayPay Bank, and Yasuko Yokoyama, Chief Manager in Strategic Partnership for BNP Paribas Cardif in Japan, look back on how they joined forces to fill this gap and provided PayPay Bank a highly successful entry into the very competitive Japanese mortgage market.

As a digital bank expanding into mortgages, why did you need to gain a strong foothold in this segment?

Shoichiro Fukushima (PayPay Bank) : PayPay Bank entered the mortgage market as a latecomer, so we knew that simple matching the competition or competing on price would not be enough. We needed a strong, differentiated positioning, and we believed, the most effective way to achieve this was to address the emerging social realities directly. That is why we were keen to work with BNP Paribas Cardif in Japan on the industry’s first(*). Joint Mortgage CPI, bringing a new and meaningful value proposition to mortgage customers.

What were the social issues you identified and how did it translate into a mortgage-related offer?

Shoichiro Fukushima : We observed a steady rise in joint mortgages, driven by increasing property prices and growing number of dual-income households. Yet conventional mortgage CPI typically covers only the insured borrower’s share of loan. If a serious illness such as cancer or others occurs during the repayment period, the other party’s repayments can also become difficult. We felt it was essential to provide protection to people to reduce this shared risk. The idea also came from the front line: our sales teams raised the question, whether such a product could be created, based on what they were hearing from customers.

What is joint mortgage CPI, and what makes it a first in Japan?

Yasuko Yokoyama (BNP Paribas Cardif in Japan) : A joint mortgage is a borrowing arrangement in which two or more people – typically a married couple – each take out a mortgage loan for the same property and act as joint guarantors for each other. In Japan, this structure is commonly known as a “Pair Loan”. With conventional CPI, only the insured person’s portion of loan is covered, leaving the other party’s debt unprotected. Joint mortgage CPI is the first product in Japan designed so that, if one borrower is affected by an unexpected event, the outstanding balance of both borrowers is covered together.

How does the product work in real-life scenarios for couples?

Yasuko Yokoyama :The coverage is designed to respond to a wide range of life-altering situations. If one partner dies, is diagnosed with a prescribed severe disability, or with cancer, the total outstanding balance for both parties can be reduced to zero. If a borrower is hospitalized on a repayment date due to illness or injury, the monthly repayment for both parties is covered. And if hospitalization continues for more than 12 months, the full remaining balance for both parties can also be reduced to zero.

What did each partner bring to make this possible?

Shoichiro Fukushima : We contributed the product concept, based on what we observed in the market and our understanding of the social issues our customers face. We know our customers well and we listen closely to their needs. As a digital bank, we are constantly looking for new ways to identify and address the existing gaps.

Yasuko Yokoyama : BNP Paribas Cardif in Japan with its expertise contributed in rapid co-development and in reducing the administrative burden on CPI through customized operational schemes, including responding to inquiries at call centers on weekends and direct customer response when accepting claims. We also designed a fast underwriting process supported by an automated engine, with strong focus on providing prompt and accurate responses to inquiries and consultations from the partner bank.

What early signals suggest the product is gaining traction, and what comes next?

Shoichiro Fukushima : PayPay Bank was the first in the industry to introduce joint mortgage CPI which quickly helped establish it as a reference point in this area. Since launch, the utilization rate of our joint mortgages increased by 10%, contributing directly to improved profitability. Looking ahead, with property prices continuing to rise and more young customers relying on joint mortgages, we plan to keep co-developing products that meet their evolving needs.

Yasuko Yokoyama : On our side, we are already exploring further co-development opportunities, with a clear focus on making insurance more accessible. We also place greater emphasis on stimulating CPI needs, and to continue delivering new and innovative products and solutions to support PayPay Bank’s mortgage growth.

(*) Based on research by PayPay Bank (as of March 2024)

Read more

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! 

Briefly introduce yourself

Stéphane
Indicar was born from a simple observation: there is an expertise imbalance between professional sellers and private buyers of used vehicles. Our goal is to democratize access to technical data, such as reliability, parts prices, and risk of damages, to make private purchases safer.

Charles
Today, Indicar comes in several technical solutions for our partners, including a widget and an API. The widget integrates very quickly, in just a few hours. And the API version allows our partners to maintain control over their editorial line. Indicar is also an online demonstrator designed as a sales support tool for Icare’s sales team and our prospects.

How does your initiative correspond to the category won? 

Stéphane
From the beginning, we involved the client in our process. We built Indicar in 3 key steps:

• Step 1 : After a 2-week Design Sprint, we presented mock-ups to about ten passersby on the street to validate our ideas.
• Step 2 : We created a mini-site that attracted over 4,000 visitors to test user interest and gather feedback. The conversion rate was very high, allowing us to get an internal GO to continue.

Charles

• Step 3 : We created an MVP developed in agile mode. This incubation stage at Bivwak was very intense. Every two weeks, we organized presentations for internal and external partners to share the progress of the developments, gather their feedback, and integrate their requests into the solution. This allowed us to quickly create concrete use cases, aligned with their needs.

We owe Indicar’s success to cross-functional collaboration between Icare’s Data, Marketing, and Operations teams and to the methodological expertise of the Cardif Lab team.
In summary, Indicar embodies the spirit of innovation driven by the client and the partner.

What are the next steps for your initiative? 

Stéphane
After being the first widget integrated on Cardif’s API Store, Indicar’s API is now live with a partner in Portugal and we are in discussions to extend it to other partners and other regions

Charles
On the development side, we continue to refine the tool based on field feedback, to maximize its impact and adoption.

What are your tips for innovating at BNP Paribas Cardif? 

Stéphane
My advice?
Find a concrete problem to solve for your clients, your partners, or your colleagues. Start small and quickly to validate your hypotheses where to focus, and find an internal sponsor who believes in your initiative.

Charles
For me, innovation at BNP and Icare goes through the involvement of all professions. It is necessary to share as much information as possible, involve as many people as possible to bring out ideas, and above all, exchange a lot. Feedback from partners and other departments brings perspectives that we do not always have internally. Sharing and collaboration are key!

Read more

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!

Briefly introduce yourself

Hello, we are Matías González and Jaime Ahumada from Chile, and we are part of the CarBoosting team, a project recognized through the Innovation Ambassadors program at BNP Paribas Cardif.

We are passionate about innovation and collaboration as key drivers to improve customer experience and create real value for the company. Our work sits at the intersection of data, technology, and business, where we focus on solving complex challenges through teamwork and analytical thinking.

Being part of CarBoosting has allowed us to combine structure with creativity, always keeping the customer at the center of our decisions. We strongly believe that innovation happens when diverse perspectives come together around a shared purpose.

Present your initiative 

CarBoosting is an AI-driven initiative designed to improve car insurance pricing in Chile, with the aim of making insurance more accessible, fair, and customer-centric.

The project emerged from a business need to identify pricing inefficiencies using data. By combining business knowledge, advanced analytics, and strong cross-functional collaboration, the team developed a model that rebalances premiums more equitably—reducing costs for overpaying customers while adjusting prices for those below the portfolio average.

This collaborative approach enabled a fast transition from concept to implementation.

For BNP Paribas Cardif, CarBoosting delivers a more competitive pricing strategy, stronger risk management, and a scalable solution that can be adapted to other markets and partners.

How does your initiative correspond to the category won?

CarBoosting perfectly reflects the Leading Innovation in AI category. It showcases how AI can be applied not only to optimize performance, but also to promote fairness, transparency, and customer value. What makes this project particularly distinctive is its scalability and adaptability.

The solution is designed to evolve and be deployed in other partners, making it a long term strategic asset. More importantly, it demonstrates how AI can be used responsibly to support both business objectives and customer trust.

What are the next steps for your initiative?

Looking ahead, our next step is to scale CarBoosting to other partners in Chile and explore its use in other markets across the region. At the same time, we are continuing to enhance the model by incorporating new data sources and improving its performance.

From the auto insurance perspective, our ambition is to ensure that the initiative remains relevant, impactful, and future ready.

What are your tips for innovating at BNP Paribas Cardif? 

Be open to new ideas and perspectives, and don’t be afraid to experiment.

True innovation happens through collaboration across teams, always keeping the customer at the center.

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 new episode of Inside the Action, Shiketsu Gi, Product Manager at BNP Paribas Cardif in Japan, introduces the rollout of an unprecedented mental health coverage for borrowers in Japan.

According to a Japanese study conducted in 2020, 40% of work absences among young professionals have been linked to psychological disorders, our teams have developed a tailored protection solution to address these emerging societal challenges.

Shiketsu Gi’s testimony highlights BNP Paribas Cardif’s commitment to making insurance more human-centered and accessible to all.

With more than 1,800 integrated retail and banking stores and 9 million personal loans issued each year, the Mexican retailer Coppel serves a broad, often underserved, modest-income customer base across Mexico. Any embedded protection offer must therefore be both trustworthy for customers and robust enough to operate smoothly at very high volumes.

Javier Tagle Hernandez and Felipe Vila (respectively Corporate Director of Business Banking at BanCoppel and Head of Insurance at Coppel), and Olivier Calandreau, CEO, of BNP Paribas Cardif in Mexico explain how they co-developed an embedded creditor protection insurance (CPI) offer shaped by customer expectations of simplicity, transparency and support when something happens. They also share how delivering on that promise required a high-performing operating and technology backbone, validated through a pilot phase before being rolled out at scale.

Q1. What made CPI particularly necessary for your customers?

Javier Tagle Hernandez (Coppel): We are very close to our customers. They visit our stores every week. We serve hard-working families, often with diverse income streams that depend on day-to-day activity. When something unexpected happens, such as an illness, an accident, the loss of the household’s main provider, the impact is immediate. Our customers therefore need loan protection that is easy to understand, and in case of a claim, gives them confidence that they will be guided and supported.

Q2. Why is trust so central to Coppel?

Felipe Vila (Coppel): Coppel has built trust over decades. Customers rely on us because they know that if we offer a product, we will support them and not leave them on their own. Insurance is no different: they expect the same Coppel experience at every touchpoint, and they expect the promise to be fulfilled when it matters most.

Q3. How did you work together to design this offer?

Felipe Vila: We started with a genuine listening exercise including customer focus groups, benchmarking and in-depth customer analysis- BNP Paribas Cardif went on that journey with us. We then built the offer around customer needs. But the product is only the starting point: the real challenge is to deliver on the promise across the entire journey, including questions, complaints and claims, in a way that fits how customers actually interact with Coppel.

Olivier Calandreau (BNP Paribas Cardif in Mexico): Everything started with the customer and the loan. With modest and often irregular income – including many self-employed people – eligibility and coverage must avoid leaving parts of the customer base uncovered. That’s why we also designed benefits beyond covering the outstanding balance, because in this segment there is often no safety net if income suddenly stops.

Q4. What did co-creation mean in practice?

Olivier Calandreau: Co-creation only works if it responds to both customer and partner needs. Coppel’s “Mejora tu vida” (improve your life) motto reflects a broader ambition around financial inclusion that resonates closely with BNP Paribas Cardif’s mission. We believe protection can make that promise more tangible by preserving stability and peace of mind for families when life shocks occur.

Javier Tagle Hernandez: For us, co-creation starts with the partner. BNP Paribas Cardif has been working with us for a long time – they visit our stores, and they understand our customers. This was not an off-the-shelf offer. They went deeper to build something our customers can afford, with simplicity embedded throughout the process.

Q5. Where did you “go the extra mile” in the offer design?

Felipe Vila: Many CPI products are primarily designed to protect the lender. In this case, we designed a proposition that also delivers direct value to the customers, with life benefit paid to the families and coverage designed to help them “land on their feet” when hardship occurs.

Olivier Calandreau: We included income-disruption scenarios, with partial payments in cases of unemployment or temporary disability to secure the loan while also supporting the family. We also added complementary services during unemployment, such as discounts and mental health assistance, recognizing how challenging that period can be.

Q6. What did you have to build technically to make it work at Coppel’s scale?

Olivier Calandreau: BNP Paribas Cardif is upgrading its core IT capacities through a new digital program and Mexico is one the pioneers in the LATAM region. With 9 million new personal loans issued each year, we needed a platform that is robust, fast, and secure, with tight system integration. API-based connectivity allows us to monitor activity daily, down to store level, and significantly improves risk monitoring.

Felipe Vila: The “magic” happens behind the scenes. Claims and services require deep data integration between Coppel and BNP Paribas Cardif. The way our system connects enables a better customer experience when it matters the most, with faster response times and smoother support.

Q7. What are the first signals from the pilot?

Felipe Vila: The pilot helped validate customer experience and identify process adjustments, as integration at this scale is complex. We are now preparing to expand the solution to more stores to continue testing the post-sales and, as claims volumes grow, to assess the claims journey more extensively. Early indicators are encouraging: there have been no complaints so far, and adoption by advisors – our first internal users – has been strong once they understood the proposition and how it supports their daily conversations with customers.

Q8. What comes next for the partnership?

Olivier Calandreau: This is only the beginning. The platform is modular, designed to accelerate the development of more products faster, with a strong focus on security and the protection of customer data as cyber risks continue to grow. We also plan to progressively extend coverage, moving from the initial retail scope to a broader perimeter, while continuing to enhance the customer journey.

Javier Tagle Hernandez: We expect the collaboration to further deepen. The BNP Paribas Cardif team is helping us better understand our clients and the most effective way to give them access to protection that truly fits their needs.

Felipe Vila: We have been partners for several years. But we are no longer just selling a product. We are building an experience around the customer journey – and that is how you build trust in insurance and long-term loyalty to the brand.

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! 

Briefly introduce yourself

I work closely with many internal stakeholders, including the Actuarial team, the Impact and Innovation Department, the operational teams (Subscription, Claims), the team of medical consultants, legal affairs, marketing, communications, etc. And with external medical experts, such as Professor Caroline Charlier-Woerther, whose clinical expertise provides an essential contribution to our analyses.

Driven by the conviction that insurance should support people’s lives without creating unjustified obstacles, I am committed every day to helping our practices evolve towards greater inclusion, simplicity and protection. Outside work, I’m particularly interested in medical advances and healthcare innovations, passions that feed directly into my job.

Other contributors to the project: 

• Actuarial Department: David Antonnetti / Myriam Jlidi / Mathieu Jourdain / Sigrid Motillon
• Impact and Innovation Department: Céline Scazzola
• Medical expert: Professor Caroline Charlier-Woerther

Could you please introduce your initiative?

HIV currently affects approximately 200,000 people in France. Thanks to modern antiretroviral treatments, 93% of those who receive them achieve an undetectable viral load, are no longer contagious and can lead a completely normal life. However, despite these major medical advances, access to credit and loan insurance remains a challenge for many people living with HIV.

Our initiative was born out of this realisation, that the way in which risk was assessed for these customers needed to be thoroughly re-examined. The objective was clear: to incorporate the latest medical data to make insurance more accessible, fairer and better adapted to today’s reality.

The project brought together a multi-disciplinary team, including actuaries, medical experts, the impact team, and, most importantly, Professor Caroline Charlier-Woerther, whose expertise provided us with a real-time clinical understanding of treatments and their efficacy.

As a result of this work, people living with HIV who have an undetectable viral load at the time of subscription can now take out loan insurance with no additional premiums or exclusions, up to a maximum of 1 million euros.

This advance goes beyond the criteria of the AERAS agreement for people with increased health risks: we are simplifying the risk assessment rule by retaining a single criterion, namely the undetectable viral load, whereas previously several conditions had to be met.

This initiative is a major development in our accessibility policy, perfectly aligned with BNP Paribas Cardif’s commitment, adopted over 15 years ago, to offer more inclusive, simpler and more comprehensive insurance.

Innovative features:
In line with the advances already made in other pathologies, BNP Paribas Cardif has drawn on the recognised expertise of Professor Caroline Charlier-Woerther to develop an innovative risk assessment.

Innovation n°1: Benefit from the real-time expertise of a specialist in the pathology.

Input from Professor Caroline Charlier-Woerther enabled us to incorporate real-time clinical environment data, and in particular the effectiveness of new treatments resulting from recent advances in medicine.

This information is invaluable and complements the statistical studies carried out over several years.

Innovation n°2: Simplify the risk assessment rule

However, risk assessment must take several parameters into account, as set out in the AERAS agreement (which defines rights to insurance and borrowing for persons with an increased health risk). These include the following:

• An undetectable viral load one year after the start of treatment;
• A CD4 count* ≥ 500/mm3 and an undetectable viral load in the last 12 months prior to subscription;
• A period of maximum 35 years between the start of treatment and the end of the loan insurance contract;
• A maximum loan coverage period of 25 years.

BNP Paribas Cardif has simplified its eligibility criteria. People living with HIV can now borrow for their projects and gain wider access to loan insurance without any additional premiums or exclusions. The only requirement is an undetectable viral load at the time of subscription for loans of up to 1 million euros.

*T4 (or CD4) cells are the cells targeted by HIV. Normally, their number varies between 500 and 1,500/mm3. When this number drops significantly, the patient suffers from immune deficiency. HIV penetrates CD4 cells and disrupts their function. CD4 (or T4) cells | Sida Info Plus

How does your initiative correspond to the category you won: inclusion and accessibility ?

Our initiative fits perfectly into the category that recognises projects promoting inclusion and accessibility. At BNP Paribas Cardif, we are committed to ensuring that everyone has access to the loan insurance best suited to their situation: when someone is rejected for insurance, it often means their financing is also rejected, and they are therefore unable to carry out personal and professional projects.

Thanks to our new approach, 9 out of 10 people living with HIV now have access to loan insurance without additional premiums or exclusions, which represents significant progress. This approach means they are better protected and can take on real estate, professional or personal projects under better conditions.

The long-term objective is to achieve a standard underwriting rate of over 95% for customers with no other comorbidities, compared with less than 5% previously.

By having a direct and measurable impact on the lives of policyholders, simplifying the eligibility criteria and striving to exceed the standards of the AERAS agreement, this initiative perfectly embodies the purpose of the category in which we won, namely to offer more inclusive, fairer and more innovative insurance.

What are the next steps for your initiative?

Launch in a new country or market if relevant / Further development or improvements / Partnerships.
This development is part of a wider initiative initiated by BNP Paribas Cardif over 15 years ago to improve access to loan insurance for vulnerable people.

The next step will be to extend this approach to other pathologies that are currently subject to complex or penalising eligibility criteria, in particular certain rare diseases, once again by relying on partnerships with recognised medical experts and researchers.

We are also looking into possibly extending the system to other countries. For example, we have just rolled out this new pricing system in Belgium.

Our ambition remains the same: to continue simplifying our insurance and making it more inclusive, to enable a growing number of people to realise their personal or professional projects.

What are your tips for innovating at BNP Paribas Cardif?

Keep up with developments, set no limits, rely on collective expertise, question you practices and constantly keep up to date with medical developments, customers’ expectations and ideas from the field.

It is by combining these different factors that we can create the most inclusive and appropriate solutions for our customers.