In 2025, Insurers and Pension Funds Redirected Their Investment Flows to Benefit from the Increase in Long Term Interest Rates (Banque de France)
Key number
EUR 3,109 billion EUR billion
Market value of investments held by French insurers and pension funds p.1
Summary
- At end-2025, the market value of investments held by French insurers and pension funds stood at EUR 3,109 billion, representing a 5.4% increase from EUR 2,950 billion in 2024.p.2
- Net acquisitions increased significantly to EUR 91 billion in 2025 compared with EUR 55 billion in 2024.p.2
- Net life insurance inflows reached EUR 44 billion, with unit-linked funds accounting for EUR 37.6 billion of the total.p.2
- Non-money market collective investment undertakings recorded net inflows of EUR 42 billion, while money market CIUs recorded net outflows of -EUR 3.0 billion.p.2
- Investments in diversification assets reached nearly EUR 530 billion, up 2.4% year-on-year, driven by structured finance which grew 13.4% to EUR 167.2 billion.p.7
- Insurers and pension funds portfolios excluding unit-linked products recorded unrealised capital gains of 4.5% on their total investments.p.8
Key insights
- Growth in total investment outstandings accelerated to 5.4% in 2025, driven by EUR 91 billion in net acquisitions and EUR 44 billion in valuation effects.p.2
- Net flows into euro-denominated life insurance products returned to positive territory at +EUR 6.4 billion in 2025 following -EUR 2.7 billion in 2024.p.2
- The spread between 10-year and 2-year French OAT yields widened from 91 basis points at end-2024 to 127 basis points at end-2025.p.2
- After applying the look-through approach, bonds accounted for 55.7% of investments, with government bonds at 19.3% and financial sector bonds at 26%.p.3
- The average yield on fixed-rate bond investments improved slightly in 2025 to 2.39%, up from 2.30% in 2024.p.4
- Assets remained highly concentrated in European issuers, with France accounting for 48% and other EU Member States representing 36%.p.5
- Green, sustainability and social bonds represented 7.8% of euro-denominated funds' bond investments in 2025.p.6
- Surrenders of euro-denominated policies dropped 7.1% to EUR 50.8 billion, reducing the euro-denominated surrender rate to 4.4%.p.9
- The mechanical effect of France's sovereign rating downgrade reduced the share of AA- to AA+ rated bonds from 35% to 11%.p.10
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