AG2R makes radical choices in health insurance

The big day has arrived at AG2R La Mondiale. On January 24, France’s leading social protection group will present its roadmap to 2025 to its 15,000 employees with the dual goal of becoming profitable and federating the sprawling insurer, whose insured organization has lost 400 million euros over a decade.

It’s the result of a long-distance race that accelerated last May when Bruno Angles was named general manager. The strategic plan has been drawn up and approved by the group’s myriad “authorities” over the past few months, which gathers about 300 offices, boards of directors and other general meetings each year.

Savings plans

A radical culture change that took over from Andre Renaudin, former head of Credit Suisse France. This insurance figure left the group at the end of December due to health reasons. “For the first time, the plan is accompanied by a financial component,” says Bruno Angles.

The main contingency is the restoration of AG2R Prevoyance. The entity needs to gain 130 million euros in room for maneuver until 2025: 60% in the form of price increases for health insurance and company insurance, 20% by renegotiating the internal reinsurance contract and finally 20% in cost savings. The group wants to end the period of irreparable losses forever with La Mondiale’s good performance in its savings business.

No assault on officers

These efforts are in addition to the €66 million savings made at all levels (excluding the Agirc-Arrco supplementary pension) since the end of 2021 under pressure from the Prudential Supervision and Compliance Authority (ACPR). The watchdog had requested €55 million, or 6%, in additional costs between 2019 and 2022.

In another radical decision, the group has just ended its relationship with the police mutual insurance company Intériale, which is supposed to open its doors to the public service. The Ministry of Internal Affairs will this year be the first to announce a tender to offer complementary collective health services to its agents as part of the collective social protection (PSC) reform of civil servants.

Apart from this specific situation, “we will not take a position on the reform of the PSC, Bruno Angles declares. In terms of health, our primary goal is to return to profitability, not growth. »

Get out of the nursing home

The Mutuelle du Bien Vieillir (MBV) manager announced his departure from the group in September. AG2R La Mondiale wanted to sever ties with this very independent group, which runs about two dozen nursing homes. The kind of institution whose image was tarnished by the Orpea scandal.

Conversely, to maintain unity between AG2R La Mondiale entities, the group will invest €630 million over six years in new IT and digital systems. This effort must be accompanied by the development of omnichannel distribution, with greater collaboration between physical sales channels via telephone and the Internet.

Discussions with Maif

These projects should drive the growth of the most promising businesses: pension savings with La Mondiale and Arial-CNP, Domitys high-end residences and casualty insurance for individuals.

Discussions are underway with Maif on this new case. “A cross-distribution partnership with an insurer like Maif would make sense,” admits Bruno Angles, without elaborating on the commercial talks. No door is closed for the future: “We are open to a distribution partnership, a more advanced alliance with Matmut, as envisaged for some time. [qui s’est soldée par un divorce rapide, NDLR]or insurtech takeover”.

Pascal Demurger, CEO of Maif, stated at a press briefing on Monday, “We are not at all in the logic of rapprochement. We are slowly making progress on operational issues. This makes the teams less stressed and we move faster. »