Booklet A: The French prefer to place their savings on life insurance, are they right?

The booklet has attracted less: with a yield lowered to 2.4%, its collection slows down, while that of life insurance takes off. But is this change of course wise for your savings?

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The French go from one piggy bank to the other. According to data from the Caisse des Dépôts, published this Monday, March 24, the net collection of booklet A (corresponding to the reduced payments of withdrawals) is established at 940 million euros in February. Combined with that of the sustainable and solidarity development booklet (LDDS), net collection reaches 1.58 billion euros on these two products in which no less than 605 billion euros are stored in total. If the harvest is better than in January (350 million euros “only” for booklet A and 890 million with the LDDS), it is nevertheless far from the levels noted a year ago: in February 2024, the booklet A had attracted more than 2 billion euros (2.34 billion). By counting deposits on LDDS, the collection ran out of 3.40 billion (twice as much as last month).

But what placement did the French savings reoriented? Obviously, towards another product that can be just as secure: life insurance. According to the latest available data from France Insurers, net collection amounts to 4.5 billion euros In January 2025, up 2.3 billion euros compared to January 2024. A sign of this change of switch, a historic record was broken in early March: driven by several months of increasing collection, life insurance has crossed the symbolic bar of the 2,000 billion euros in outstanding, which corresponds to the total sums held on these savings products.

Life insurance: a higher and more stable return?

At first glance, this rocking responds to an implacable logic: at equivalent risk level, the guaranteed part of life insurance contracts – funds in euros – seems to report more than booklet A and LDDS. On February 1, the remuneration of these two booklets (which is always identical) has indeed passed from 3% to 2.4%and it should drop again on August 1, given the decline in inflation (+0.8% in February). Conversely, life insurance in Euros funds reported an average of 2.5% in 2024, according to estimates from the Facts & Figures firm. A rate, which unlike that of booklet A (net of all taxation), is given however gross of social security contributions (17.2%). Also, the average net yield of life insurance in Euros is much lower than that of the Livret A (2.07%), even if the best contracts of the last cuvée were able to do much better than the latter in 2024 (3.8% net, for example, for the Corum Euro Life contract).

Nevertheless, the yield of life insurance may seem in the eyes of savers more stable than that of booklet A: “2.6% in 2023 on average against 2.5% in 2024: we see that average yields are almost stable on euros funds, while the booklet A, it, fell more suddenly by 0.6% on February 1”summarizes Stéphane Van Huffel, President SVH Conseil, in the “major savings meeting” (Capital / Radio Patrimoine). Sufficient reason to go from a secure savings product to another? Admittedly, it is possible that the yield of Euros funds is still maintained in 2025, but unlike a booklet A, this rate can never be known in advance, but communicated only at the start of the year by your insurer. In addition, if the average yield is actually stable, performance differences can be substantial between products. According to our comparative table of 2024, many contracts are struggling to exceed 2% gross remuneration, when the best culminate beyond 4%.