The Insurance Barrier In French Construction
A CE mark opens the EU market. In France, the insurer has the final say.
You want to use a roof-integrated photovoltaic system or vacuum insulation panels in a French building project.
The product already has a CE mark, so it can access the European Union market. That’s all that’s needed to use it in France, right?
No, just because a system or product can be sold and used in German, Italian or Irish buildings (other EU member states), that doesn’t mean it can be used in French buildings.
This isn’t a matter of French product regulations; the real constraint is insurance.
It’s about how the French liability and insurance regime applies to builders and designers.
The French Civil Code puts specific levels of liability on building contractors and architects at 1-, 2- and 10-year points after a construction project handover date.
The designer and builder will look at innovative products through this liability lens.
The liability is matched to specific insurance requirements. How the French insurance industry views the products is key to builders’ and designers’ appetite to use or specify them.
How does the insurance industry assess a new or innovative material?
The process can be thought of in three levels.
First, the French standards association, AFNOR (Association française de normalisation), approves unified technical documents (NF DTU) and other NF (normes françaises) standards. These define conventional construction practice in France. When works are executed in accordance with an applicable NF DTU, that use is generally treated by insurers as a standard technique (technique courante).
Second, for products and systems not adequately covered by conventional construction standards, the French building science centre, CSTB, carries out technical assessment and testing. On that basis the independent commission CCFAT (Commission Chargée de Formuler les Avis Techniques) issues “technical advice” (Avis Techniques, ATec) and “technical application documents” (Documents Techniques d’Application, DTA) for the products or systems. It also issues ATEx opinions for experimental techniques.
The third level is led by the work of the C2P - Product Risk Prevention Commission (Commission Prévention Produits mis en œuvre) within the Agence Qualité Construction. Drawing on CCFAT’s Avis Techniques and DTA, together with defect and claims experience from insurers and contractors, C2P maintains a Green List (Liste verte) of product and system families under ATec/DTA that are not under observation. Use of those products and system families within their defined domain is treated by insurers as a standard technique (technique courante).
Product and system families that C2P places “under observation” (mise en observation) are not on the Green List. This has already happened to both our examples: vacuum insulation panels for wall insulation were placed under observation in 2016, and roof-integrated photovoltaic systems not sold as complete kits followed in 2018. The latter remain under observation as of early 2026.
Using non-Green-List products is treated as non-standard and must be declared to the insurer, who will then decide whether and how to underwrite it (with conditions, surcharges, exclusions, or refusal).
What does this mean in practice for an innovative material or system?
It depends on the cost implication for the contractor’s and designers’ insurance. The cost needs to be moderate. The contractor and designers need to be satisfied about the risk of liability for defects, at the 1-, 2- and 10-year stages.
While a product or system family may start out non-standard, off the Green List, under observation, it can eventually become standard.
Being under observation is neither the beginning nor the end of a product’s market life. It is a risk‑management phase during which manufacturers can (and do) work their way to Green List status by improving the technical record and demonstrating consistent performance at the level required for a given application.
The roof-integrated PV system and the vacuum insulation panel examples show the same pattern: being placed under observation doesn’t shut a product out of the French market. It means the insurer must review and price the risk individually rather than covering it automatically.
For a manufacturer, that’s a signal to invest in building a performance track record: pursue an Avis Technique or ATEx, work with contractors (and clients) willing to use the product, and build the claims-free history.