When charges, inflation and taxes are taken into account, the real returns of "assurance-vie" contracts - life insurance policies widely used by households as a means to obtain additional resources at retirement age in France - are very low and "may in fact be losing money".
"60 millions de consommateurs", the magazine of the French National Institute of Consumer Affairs, based itself on BETTER FINANCE's calculation to get the figures on the performance of "assurance-vie" contracts from 2000 to 2014 and has once again brought the issue to the attention of French media.
In its article published last week, the Institute concluded that in 2014, unit-linked life insurance contracts officially reported an average return of 2.5%, according to insurers. But after expenses, taxes and inflation, the real return is actually 1.43%.
Yahoo!Finance France, le jdc.fr and Le Contrarien also echoed these conclusions.
Our report on the real returns of pension savings in France is available here (in French). Full report in English here.