Chapter III: Guarantee fund for policyholders against the failure of life and health insurance companies.

Subject to the provisions of article R. 423-15, the fund must have at its disposal at all times a total amount of resources equal to 0.05% of the total mathematical provisions recorded at 31 December of the previous year for all the undertakings referred to in article L. 423-1. The overall amount is made up by the member companies, after deduction of the fund's own resources, which include financial income, half by contributions paid into the fund and half by contributions not paid in, in the form of reserves for the guarantee fund.

The guarantee fund notifies each member company of the amount of its annual contribution, which corresponds to its share of the total amount provided for in the first paragraph. This share is equal to the percentage that its technical provisions recorded at 31 December of the previous year, after a deduction of three quarters for provisions for unit-linked policies, represent in the technical provisions of all member undertakings calculated with the same deduction.

A company's annual contribution may not be less than €15,000. This minimum contribution is calculated, where applicable, for all companies within the scope of consolidation of the same group. It does not apply to companies that have been in business for less than three years on 1 January of the year in which the contribution is calculated.

If the amount of its contribution for the year is higher than that for the previous year, each company makes a single payment to the fund and allocates an amount equal to the difference to the reserve. If the difference is negative, the Fund will return half of the difference to the company concerned, and the other half to the company itself, from the reserve for the guarantee fund.

Member companies have 10 working days from receipt of the notification provided for in the second paragraph to pay their contributions to the fund. The guarantee fund informs the supervisory authority of any delay in payment of more than one month or of any refusal by an insurance undertaking to pay, so that the authority can implement, if necessary, the sanction procedures provided for in Section 7 of Chapter II of Title I of Book VI of the Monetary and Financial Code. The authority may also initiate sanction procedures if it finds that the undertaking has not allocated the required amount to the guarantee fund reserve.

Contributions paid into the guarantee fund by undertakings whose membership of the fund has ended may not be repaid by the fund.