French insurers favor longer-term bonds as yields rise
French insurers and pension funds directed €50.4 billion into debt securities in 2025 as long-term yields rose. A Banque de France bulletin published on October 23, 2026 reports that total investments reached €3,109 billion.
Fresh inflows favor longer maturities
Investments grew 5.4 percent in 2025, supported by €91 billion in net acquisitions and €44 billion in valuation gains.
Non-money market collective investment undertakings (CIUs) attracted €42 billion, while money market CIUs lost €3 billion.
Direct equity and ownership-interest purchases slowed to €1.4 billion from €14 billion in 2024.
Government bonds attracted €23 billion and financial-sector bonds €20 billion; non-financial corporate debt recorded €1.7 billion in outflows.
French and German 10-year yields rose 35 and 45 basis points to 3.56 and 2.81 percent, respectively.
Average fixed-rate bond yields improved to 2.39 percent from 2.30 percent.
After looking through CIUs, bonds represented 55.7 percent of investments, down from 56.6 percent.
Savings inflows support portfolio renewal
Life insurance net inflows reached €44 billion, including €37.6 billion into unit-linked products and €6.4 billion into euro-denominated products.
Euro-policy returns averaged 2.6 percent as the Livret A rate fell from 2.4 to 1.7 percent.
Liquidity ratios remained near 50 percent, and euro-policy surrender rates declined to 4.4 percent from 4.8 percent.
French and other European Union issuers accounted for 48 and 36 percent of investments; US dollar exposure was 5.3 percent.
The survey covers 445 insurers and 23 pension funds; revised methodology limits comparisons with earlier publications.
Higher income carries valuation costs
Higher reinvestment yields coincided with €8.5 billion in negative debt-security valuations.
Portfolios excluding unit-linked products nevertheless retained unrealised gains equal to 4.5 percent of total net book assets.
Sovereign bonds contributed losses equal to 3.6 percent of that same asset base.