Health questionnaire
The form on which an applicant declares their health, whose inaccuracy exposes them to voidance of the contract or to reduced benefits.
Since the Cour de cassation's joint chamber ruling of February 7, 2014, a French insurer can invoke a misrepresentation only on the answer to a specific question asked before the policy was signed. The health questionnaire is the vehicle for disclosure in personal insurance. The applicant answers written questions, and the insurer decides on those answers whether to accept, load or decline. The sanction for inaccuracy is graduated by intent. An intentional misstatement that changes the insurer's view of the risk voids the contract, with premiums retained by the insurer, the heaviest sanction in insurance law. An unintentional misstatement discovered after a claim reduces the benefit in the ratio of the premium paid to the premium that would have been due. French case law has substantially tightened these sanctions by requiring the insurer to ask precise questions. An open-ended questionnaire, or a pre-filled form signed without anything being asked, no longer allows anything to be held against the applicant. The problem solved is the information asymmetry on a risk only the applicant knows and the insurer cannot observe.
The mixed chamber of France's Court of Cassation held, in a judgment of February 7, 2014, that an insurer may rely on a misstatement only where precise questions were put before the contract was signed. The sanctions remain those of articles L. 113-8 and L. 113-9 of the Insurance Code: voidance for intentional misstatement, proportional reduction for the rest. The burden of proof rests entirely on the insurer.
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