Decennale Insurance Fraud: How to Verify an Insurer in France

The essentials

• On 7 July 2026, the FFB (Fédération Française du Bâtiment, France's national building federation) warned of fraudulent garantie décennale (France's mandatory ten-year structural liability cover for construction professionals) offers issued under the name PROVINZIAL; referred by the FFB, the ACPR (France's prudential and resolution supervisory authority) confirmed the offers were fraudulent.
• The name PROVINZIAL points to three distinct entities headquartered in Germany, none of which appear on the list of organisations authorised to distribute décennale cover in France.
• The e-mail address used by the fraud's authors was added to the AMF-ACPR blacklists on 12 May 2026, following an initial report.
• An insurance organisation is verified on REGAFI, the register kept by the ACPR (regafi.fr); a broker or agent is verified on the ORIAS register (orias.fr).
• A foreign or unusual IBAN requested for the premium payment is, on its own, a sufficient signal to suspend any payment.

What fraud did the FFB and the ACPR identify in 2026?

This is a matter of French law: France requires construction professionals to hold garantie décennale insurance, and the verification methods below apply to that French regime. The FFB was alerted to a fraudulent commercial offer targeting construction companies, issued under the name PROVINZIAL. Referred by the federation, the ACPR confirmed the offers were indeed fraudulent.

The name PROVINZIAL in fact refers to three distinct entities headquartered in Germany that do not appear on the list of organisations authorised to distribute décennale insurance in France. The documents used closely mimic the standard paperwork a licensed insurer would send, which makes the fraud difficult to spot at first glance. According to the FFB, the offer circulates by e-mail, and the address used by its authors was added to the AMF-ACPR blacklists on 12 May 2026, following an initial report. Any certificate issued under this name — including one passed on by a subcontractor in support of a project — should be treated as invalid and refused.

This type of fraud is not isolated: the formal appearance of construction insurance paperwork (logo, layout, policy number) is relatively easy to imitate, and construction companies, often solicited by e-mail, are a recurring target identified by the FFB for this kind of scheme.

For a French SME or mid-sized construction firm, the practical consequence goes beyond simply losing the premium paid. A company that operates believing it is covered by a décennale policy issued by a fictitious organisation finds itself, in the event of a claim, in exactly the same position as a company that never took out cover at all: no guarantee applies, and exposure to the criminal penalties for uninsured construction activity under article L.243-3 of the French Insurance Code remains unchanged — a third party's fraud is not a valid defence.

How do you verify that an insurance organisation is authorised to distribute décennale cover in France?

The status of an insurance organisation — an insurance company, a mutual, or a pension institution — is verified on REGAFI, the register of financial agents and insurance organisations kept by the ACPR and updated daily (regafi.fr).

This register specifies, for each entity, the activities it is authorised to carry out in France. The ACPR recommends checking that the legal name, trading name and address shown on the register strictly match those of the party making the offer: a near-identical name, as in the PROVINZIAL case, is a characteristic sign of fraud or impersonation. For an organisation established in another European Economic Area state and operating in France under the freedom to provide services, the ACPR recommends also consulting the register kept by its home-country supervisory authority, or the European register kept by EIOPA (the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority). Verifying that the organisation genuinely exists is a separate question from the content of the cover held with an insurer that is otherwise properly authorised — our article on the garantie décennale coverage cap covers that second point.

How do you verify that a broker or agent is authorised to offer a contract?

Any intermediary — broker, general agent or insurance agent — must be registered with ORIAS, France's single register for insurance and finance intermediaries, or they are operating illegally. This free register, available at orias.fr, lists the professionals authorised to sell insurance products in France.

An intermediary's ORIAS record shows its registration category (broker, general agent, intermediary's agent or non-exclusive agent), its exact legal name and company registration number, and whether or not it is permitted to collect funds directly on an insurer's behalf — a decisive point when the premium is to be paid to the intermediary rather than to the insurance organisation itself. An ORIAS number quoted on a quote or a marketing document should be cross-checked against the register, not simply taken at face value: the number alone proves nothing unless it is matched against the corresponding record, with a legal name and address identical to those of the party you are dealing with.

Register	What it verifies	Managed by	Access
REGAFI	Insurance organisations (companies, mutuals, pension institutions) authorised to operate in France	ACPR	regafi.fr
ORIAS	Brokers, general agents and intermediary agents authorised to distribute insurance	ORIAS	orias.fr
AMF-ACPR blacklists	Entities, websites and addresses reported as fraudulent	AMF / ACPR	amf-france.org

What warning signs should raise concern before signing a décennale contract?

Five signals recur systematically in the fraud cases recorded by the FFB and the ACPR: an unsolicited approach by e-mail, a price significantly below market rate with no justification, a name resembling a known insurer but slightly different, a foreign or unusual IBAN for the premium payment, and no verifiable details on REGAFI or ORIAS.

Taken alone, none of these signals proves fraud. Together, they should lead to suspending any payment and verifying the organisation before going any further. A carefully produced document is not proof of authenticity: the PROVINZIAL documents identified by the FFB closely reproduced the standard format of construction insurance paperwork, down to how the cover was presented. This is precisely why verification should rely on the official register, not on the appearance of the document received.

The period before an annual contract renewal, or before a project requiring a quick certificate, is a moment when the same level of caution should apply: the urgency felt by the company changes neither the content of the register to check nor the time it takes to check it.

What should you do if a suspicious certificate has already been received or accepted from a subcontractor?

The document should be refused, and the company should require a new certificate issued by an organisation verified on REGAFI before work starts on site. If a premium has already been paid, this should be reported without delay to the relevant regional federation or to the ACPR, along with the IBAN used for the payment.

This situation differs from a case where a subcontractor has simply not yet, in good faith, taken out décennale cover, or whose existing certificate does not cover the project in question: those are matters for ordinary document checks rather than fraud. It also differs from the absence of any legal obligation to hold décennale cover for certain subcontractors, due to the lack of a direct contract with the project owner. In both cases, the existence and authorisation of the issuing organisation remain the starting point: a perfectly completed certificate issued by an entity absent from REGAFI has no value as cover.

Can a genuinely authorised insurer still refuse to cover you?

Yes. A décennale insurance refusal from a genuinely authorised organisation is a different situation, governed by a specific procedure: referral to the Bureau Central de Tarification (BCT, France's central rate-setting bureau for compulsory insurance). This mechanism has nothing to do with fraud: the insurer exists and is authorised to operate, but declines the risk presented.

Our article on the BCT referral procedure sets out the deadlines and documents required in the case of an explicit or implicit refusal. Conversely, a total absence of décennale cover — whether from a deliberate choice or from fraud not caught in time — exposes the construction company to the criminal penalties under article L.243-3 of the French Insurance Code, covered in our dedicated article. Between a legitimate refusal from an authorised insurer and a scam run through a fictitious organisation, checking the official registers beforehand remains, in every case, the first step.

---

McLer is an insurance brokerage specialised in corporate risk for the road transport and construction sectors. Based in the Paris region, McLer supports French SMEs and mid-sized companies in structuring, negotiating and managing their insurance programmes.

Has your company, or one of your subcontractors, received an insurance offer that looks suspicious? Contact McLer to review your construction insurance programme.