Eckert Act (unclaimed life insurance policies)
The French act of June 13, 2014 that requires insurers to search for deceased policyholders and their beneficiaries, and transfers unclaimed proceeds to the Caisse des dépôts after ten years.
The Eckert Act, in force since January 1, 2016, deals with life insurance policies whose insured has died without the beneficiary being found or even informed. It requires the insurer to check the national register of deceased persons every year for all its policyholders, then to search for and notify beneficiaries, and to publish the number of policies concerned and the sums at stake. It also regulates post-mortem crediting: the benefit keeps earning interest between death and payment, which removes any financial incentive for the insurer to wait. If no claim is made ten years after the death becomes known, the sums are transferred to the Caisse des dépôts, searchable by the public on the Ciclade website, and then pass to the State twenty years later. For insurers, unclaimed policies have become a compliance risk in their own right, sanctioned by the supervisor.
Before the act, the French Court of Audit estimated in 2013 that unclaimed policies amounted to 2.76 billion euros at the end of 2012, and in 2014 the supervisor ACPR fined CNP Assurances 40 million euros for failures in searching for beneficiaries.
Follow the research
One letter a week. First, the week's underwriting note, when one is published: a dated, argued decision, signed by Paul Bernardski. Then what the observatory published on cyber risk, political risk and insurance. No account, no tracking.
No spam, one-click unsubscribe, no data ever sold.