Life insurance: the Afer contract yielded 2.65% in 2016

The rate announced by the association of savers is down sharply from that used for 2015 (3.05%). The president of the association pleads for investments in units of account.

No more big numbers on the screen, after a few minutes of waiting to create the suspense, and the traditional applause, which usually greet the presentation by Afer, to the press, the performance of his contract. This time it was in silence that he was welcomed.

The approximately 730,000 members of the savers association, of course, will not have to complain. At 2.65%, net of management fees, but before social security and taxation, their contract remains well placed in the list of life insurance. It could even have brought them more, if the Afer, contrary to the principles it had put forward during its creation, had not constituted this time again reserves for the years to come, by endowing the famous "provision for Profit Sharing (PPB) "of 0.25% return.

Provisions for the future

If she had paid all the financial gains to her subscribers, 2.90%, the Afer would be matched with Gaipare, another association saver, who has endeared his SCH, and therefore served 2 90 %%. She would have eclipsed Asac Fapès (2.80%).

But the choice was made, as the governor of the Banque de France had urged, to make reservations for the future. What future? Gérard Bekerman, president of the most famous savers association in France, has approved the Eurocroissance fund, which only guarantees subscribers' capital after a minimum of 8 years, and promised new units of account for Afer in 2017: a large patrimonial sicav, which can invest on all asset classes, and a unit of account invested in stone. Media that offer no capital guarantee.

While insurers want primarily to limit the new collection on funds in euros, they have little reason, in a very low interest rate environment on the markets, to make efforts to offer good returns to savers. So much, indeed, as the Banque de France is asking them to do, to make provisions for the future. However, this part of the profits they put aside belongs in principle to the subscribers. When will they perceive it? Time is running out for some. Of the 730,000 members of Afer, 90,000 are over 80 years old.