Independent worker insurance in France
In France, basically all workers automatically have some sort of insurance. However, if you’re an independent worker, then yours doesn’t provide as much coverage as the one of an employee. For example, you wouldn’t be covered against unemployment.
Thankfully though, it’s possible for independent workers to subscribe to additional optional insurance. Indeed, you can:
- Subscribe to additional life-insurance
- Have an additional retirement insurance
- Be covered against unemployment
- Be covered against work-related accidents or illnesses
As such, you can basically get your own custom insurance, and even make it better than that of employees!
Summary:
- What exactly is this complimentary optional insurance?
- Deductible contributions
- Which companies should I contact for coverage against unemployment?
1- What exactly is this complimentary optional insurance?
As mentioned earlier, it’s an optional insurance regime that allows you to be covered against the risks that independent workers typically aren’t covered for.
Furthermore, since 1994, if you subscribe to a group insurance contract, the contributions you make towards it are tax-deductible. (That is, as long as they don’t go over a certain threshold that depends on the type of contract, but we’ll get to that later).
In particular, you can subscribe to so-called “Madelin contracts” by contacting insurance companies or mutual. These allow you to optimize your social coverage in terms of retirement, unemployment, disease and maternity, and even life insurance.
2- Deductible contributions
The limits to deductible contributions can be a bit complicated, but if you’re interested, you can use these values for 2018 as reference. Here, the term PASS stands for “Annual Ceiling of Social Security”. In 2018, it goes up to 39 732 €.
For retirement contracts:
They are tax deductible until they exceed the biggest if these two thresholds:
- 10% of the taxable benefit, with the limit being 8 times the PASS, to which you subtract 15% for the segment of your benefit that’s between the PASS and 8 times the PASS.
- 10% of the PASS.
For life insurance contracts (maternity and disease, disability, death)
Madelin contracts allow you to keep receiving revenue if you’re forced to stop working for one of these reasons, and to protect your family in case of death.
They are tax deductible until they exceed the biggest if these two thresholds:
- 7% of the PASS, to which you add 3.75% of the taxable benefit.
- 3% of 8 times the PASS (in other words, 24% of the PASS)
For unemployment contracts
They are tax deductible until they exceed the biggest if these two thresholds:
- 875% of taxable benefit, with the limit being 8 times the PASS
- 5% of the PASS
However, you should keep in mind that if you receive bonuses because of individual contracts, then these are not tax-deductible. Not to mention, to balance these tax-deductions, any compensation you receive is subject to the income tax.
For work-related accidents
It’s possible to get insurance for work-related accidents and illnesses. If you have a “risky” activity, such as construction, it is incredibly important that you get this insurance. As such, the contributions you have to pay are much lower than what employees have to pay, despite offering similar compensation. The only exceptions are the daily compensations for temporary disability. These aren’t given to those insured optionally.
As for contributions: they are tax-deductible with no limit.
3- Which companies should I contact for coverage against unemployment?
There are actually quite a few:
- The GSC (Social Guarantee of Company Directors):
Here, compensation is given after you’ve been contributing for 12 months.
They offer a special regime for those who have created or taken over a company in the past 3 years, and who have a salary superior to 50% of the PASS. - The APPI (The Association for the Protection of Independent Directors)
Much like the GSC, you can only receive compensation after 12 months.
However, this one concerns directors whose functions end with a collective procedure or in certain situations where they are laid-off.
Directors must have less than 65 years when they first apply. - April Insurance
