RGA Prevention Fund: 2,000 Applications Filed, 19 Processed — the Number the Government Won't Own Up To

The scheme that was supposed to change everything — and its first results

In the fall of 2024, amid growing pressure on the Cat-Nat scheme and record RGA claims, the government launched an initiative billed as ambitious: an experimental prevention fund designed to act before damage appears.

The scheme targeted owners of single-family homes in the most exposed areas. It was meant to finance vulnerability diagnostics and, where relevant, preventive works. Eleven pilot departments were selected for the experiment.

Six months later, the numbers came in. Two thousand applications had been filed by motivated homeowners. Nineteen had actually been processed.

Nineteen.

This 0.95% rate is not a communication glitch. It reflects a structural reality: eligibility criteria, administrative procedures and processing delays made the scheme inaccessible to the vast majority of homeowners who needed it. Of the 2,000 applications filed, only 19 were processed after six months — a success rate of 0.95%.

Why were so few applications processed?

The reasons for this failure are manifold. First, geographic criteria: the scheme was limited to very specific geographic areas, excluding many homeowners whose homes lie in moderate-exposure zones — yet still at significant risk.

Second, administrative complexity: obtaining a recognized diagnosis, finding a certified contractor, putting together the funding application, meeting deadlines — a series of steps that discourages the households least equipped to handle red tape. Precisely the ones the scheme was supposed to prioritize.

Finally, the amounts allocated: 30 million euros in total for eleven departments and potentially hundreds of thousands of eligible homes. That works out to roughly 1,500 euros per home if every application had been processed — barely enough for a thorough diagnosis, far short of the cost of a complete preventive solution.

"The scheme's initial results, with 19 applications processed out of 2,000 filed, proved disappointing." — L'Argus de l'Assurance, May 27, 2026

The climate backdrop that makes the urgency even starker

This disappointing outcome comes against a backdrop the French geological survey (BRGM) has documented with precision. The frequency of geotechnical droughts is not just rising — it is changing in nature.

BRGM's projections chart an unambiguous trajectory: a drought comparable to that of 2003 — perceived at the time as an exceptional event that generated record costs — could occur once every three years between 2020 and 2050. Then once every two years between 2050 and 2080. Before 2020, that probability was roughly once every ten years.

In this context, every year without preventive action is another year of exposure for the foundations of a home on clay soil. The government's prevention scheme, even fully operational, would only have addressed a tiny fraction of the exposed housing stock. With 19 applications in six months, the gap between the climate emergency and the institutional response is glaring.

TF1 said it — but the news reports still have the same blind spot

On May 13, 2026, TF1 devoted a segment to the fund's track record, on both its lunchtime and evening news broadcasts. The figure of 19 applications processed out of 2,000 filed was presented to several million viewers. It's the first time a major national broadcaster has highlighted this imbalance so directly.

But as is often the case in TV coverage of RGA, the blind spot remains the same: the camera shows the cracks, the testimonies, homeowners' helplessness against the system. It rarely shows what can be done before the cracks appear.

The announced easing of the fund's criteria — allowing cracks from 1 mm instead of 2 mm, and three-story homes instead of two — is a step in the right direction. It does not solve the fundamental equation: public prevention, as currently organized, cannot match the scale of the problem.

News reports show the damage. They don't show the solutions installed before the damage happens, because that's visually less dramatic. That's the real problem: prevention is invisible until it has worked.

What this means for homeowners who won't wait for the government

The lesson from the prevention fund isn't that prevention doesn't work. It's that prevention organized by the government — with its geographic criteria, administrative procedures and delays — cannot, in its current form, protect the 12.1 million homes located in moderate- or high-exposure zones.

Homeowners who act independently, without waiting for a public scheme, have access to the same range of preventive solutions — without the administrative constraints. A soil moisture regulation system installed preventively on still-healthy foundations is accessible (well below the cost of underpinning work). It requires no application, no specific geographic zone, no waiting list.

The CCR advocates generalizing the 'Build Back Better' principle — rebuilding more resiliently. The real revolution is not having to rebuild at all.

19 applications processed out of 2,000 filed. This figure sums up the state of public prevention against RGA risk. Private prevention — no forms, no geographic criteria, no waiting — remains the most direct option for protecting a home before the damage becomes irreversible.

Three reasons explain this gap: first, unlike the public fund, a preventive solution requires no application, approval or external validation. Second, its cost remains controlled and predictable — significantly more accessible than underpinning or micropiles, several times cheaper. Finally, a solution installed before cracks appear works on healthy foundations, making it up to 10 times more effective than a repair.