Health questionnaire
A declaration through which the insurer assesses medical risk to set cover, exclusions and surcharges. Since the Lemoine law, it is waived for loans up to €200,000 per insured repaid before age 60. When it applies, accurate answers are crucial: a false statement can void the cover.
Key points
- Medical declaration allowing the insurer to assess risk and set cover terms.
- Waived since the Lemoine law for loans up to €200,000 per insured repaid before age 60.
- A false declaration, even unintentional, can void the policy or trigger a benefit refusal.
- For declared conditions, the AERAS convention facilitates access to insurance for aggravated risks.
Frequently asked questions
What information must be declared in the health questionnaire?
The insured must sincerely declare any diagnosed conditions, ongoing treatments, recent hospitalizations, and risk behaviors such as smoking or extreme sports. All information must be accurate as of the signing date, failing which the insurer's risk assessment is distorted. The right to be forgotten introduced by the Lemoine law does, however, allow certain past conditions to go undeclared after five years without recurrence.
What happens if an illness is omitted from the health questionnaire?
An intentional omission constitutes a false declaration liable to void the policy, meaning the insurer may refuse to cover a claim related to the undeclared condition, or even void the entire contract. An unintentional omission may lead to a revision of coverage or a retroactive surcharge. In both cases, the consequences can be serious for the borrower or their beneficiaries, making completeness of declaration paramount.
Does the Lemoine law's removal of the health questionnaire benefit all borrowers?
No, the benefit is targeted: only borrowers whose insured share does not exceed €200,000 and whose contract ends before they turn 60 are covered. For larger loans or older borrowers, the questionnaire remains mandatory. High-risk medical profiles above these thresholds must therefore still go through the full declaration process, and may apply under the AERAS convention if cover is refused or subject to significant exclusions.
In practice
A 45-year-old borrower looking to insure a €180,000 loan repayable over 14 years (i.e., before age 60) no longer needs to complete a health questionnaire since the Lemoine law came into force, regardless of their past medical history.
Put it into practice with CourtImmo
See how CourtImmo software helps brokers on this topic:
Official sources
- Obtaining a borrower insurance contract · Service-Public.gouv.fr
- Law of 28 February 2022 (Lemoine) · Vie-publique.fr