The numerical measure of lost capacity, obtained by crossing a functional impairment with an occupational one, which drives the amount of the annuity.
A disability rating puts a figure on what a person has lost, and the difficulty is that two very different quantities combine in it. Functional impairment measures the physical or mental damage regardless of occupation, against a reference medical scale, while occupational impairment measures the concrete hindrance in the work actually performed, where the same injury weighs heavily on a surgeon and lightly on an accountant. Most French protection contracts cross the two through a table or a formula weighted toward the functional side, so that retraining into another occupation cannot by itself erase the cover. The result is then applied to a ladder of thresholds: below a first threshold nothing is due, between that threshold and a second the annuity is scaled pro rata, above it the annuity is full. The problem solved is turning a medical judgment into a sum of money under a rule written in advance, without which every file would become a negotiation and every refusal a lawsuit.
The French Concours medical disability scale, in its 2001 edition, serves as the benchmark for most contracts. A claimant assessed at 40% functional impairment and 70% occupational hindrance ends up with a contractual rating near 48%: below the 66% threshold, the annuity is paid in the ratio of 48 to 66, slightly under three quarters of the full amount.
barème croisé, taux contractuel d'invalidité