La Médiation de l’assurance (LMA) received 60 000 dispute filings over the twelve-month period leading into 2026, marking a substantial escalation in consumer complaints driven largely by digital tools, cost-of-living pressures, and heightened consumer mistrust, according to official data released by the organization.
The latest figures illustrate a continuous surge in disputes compared to prior years. According to LMA, the organization handled 46 830 filings in 2025, representing a 28% increase over 2024. This wave stands in stark contrast to the 15 000 cases recorded in 2020. Furthermore, the admissibility rate climbed from 33 à 47% to 47% over the same multi-year period, resulting in a 64% expansion in active case files.
Drivers Behind the Dispute Surge
The rapid rise in filings stems from several converging factors identified in the LMA report. Submitting a dispute to LMA is free of charge and streamlined, with 75% of filings arriving via internet channels. Concurrently, consumers increasingly utilize artificial intelligence tools to draft complaints and articulate grievances.
Economic headwinds, particularly household purchasing power concerns, also fuel the trend. According to LMA, broader societal distrust frequently extends to insurance providers, whose internal claims departments occasionally fail to resolve disputes satisfactorily on the first attempt.
Impacted Insurance Sectors
The complaint surge disproportionately affects specific lines of coverage. According to the LMA data, automobile insurance saw an 81% increase in filings over a one-year period. Homeowners insurance filings rose by 48%, while borrower’s insurance (assurance emprunteur) jumped by 77%. Supplementary health insurance (complémentaire santé) experienced the steepest rise, surging by 97%.
Despite the influx of cases, LMA resolved 14 220 disputes in 2025, reflecting a 40% year-over-year increase. Average response times remained stable at slightly over seven months, assisted by internal productivity gains and amicable proposals submitted by insurers during the mediation process. For the simplest 36% of cases, policyholders received answers in under three months.
Amicable Resolutions and Industry Cooperation
Policyholders obtained full or partial satisfaction in 55% of cases handled in 2025. This high success rate is driven by insurer cooperation; in 36% of admissible files, insurers make swift amicable proposals—typically covering the disputed claim—shortly after learning of the LMA filing. According to the organization, no insurer refuses to enter mediation, and LMA recommendations are followed in over 99% of cases.
Beyond individual dispute resolution, consumer law mandates that consumer mediators issue recommendations to refine commercial practices. These efforts often take place within the Comité consultatif du secteur financier (CCSF), which brings together public authorities, consumer associations, insurers, and brokers.
Regulatory Reforms on Borrower Coverage and Contract Clarity
Recent CCSF deliberations addressed “coverage gaps” in borrower’s insurance. During insurance substitutions, policyholders historically found themselves without coverage for sick leave due to conflicting deductibles, exclusions, and waiting periods between old and new policies, despite formal “equivalence of guarantees” rules. Chaired by Catherine Julien-Hiebel, who also leads the LMA Board of Directors, the CCSF formalized an agreement addressing this issue through an official opinion issued on May 26, 2026.
Contract readability remains a secondary focal point for regulators and mediators. Supplementary health insurance contracts frequently obscure reimbursement amounts behind complex vocabulary. Similarly, restrictive definitions in travel cancellation policies—such as narrow interpretations of “accident” or “illness”—frequently diverge from common usage. The mediator has called for the industry to adopt voluntary ethical commitments to classify specific incidents, such as falls from ladders or roofs and drownings, unequivocally as accidents.
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