“It’s still where we need it most”: no mutual insurance or welfare coverage maintained during birth leave... Unless the company pays additional salary

Appointments with the pediatrician and specialists have been coming one after the other for Camille since the birth of her daughter. If she was impatiently waiting to take advantage of the new additional birth leave (CSN) to give herself two more months with her baby, the young mother was stunned after a telephone exchange with her mutual insurance company. “She does not reimburse anything during the leave even though she usually takes care of excess fees.

The bill is getting hefty with appointments almost every week", annoys this 33-year-old mother living in Paris. "It's still where we need it the most", she insists. Camille is not the only one to have experienced this unpleasant surprise since the birth leave came into force on July 1.

“We had a series of appointments with the pediatrician costing more than 90 euros and zero reimbursement, even partial, of excess fees charged,” laments Quentin, a young 31-year-old father living in Maisons-Alfort (Val-de-Marne). A hole in the racket But as it was voted in the Social Security budget for 2026, then applied by decree by the government, the maintenance of mutual insurance is not guaranteed. “Unless the employer grants partial or total salary maintenance, or indirectly via a welfare plan financed by him”, explains to BFM Business Me Nelly Jean-Marie, lawyer specializing in social protection.

And for good reason, the employment contract being considered suspended during the additional birth leave, the employee is no longer supposed to contribute to his company's mutual insurance, just like his employer on his behalf. This means that even if the employer does not pay a salary supplement, the parent would have to pay the entire contribution to their company's mutual insurance company to continue to be covered, that is to say the employee part and the employer part. Government confusion The fact remains that the subject is debated, even in Parliament, where additional birth leave was voted on.

Socialist deputy for the Loire, Pierrick Courbon even challenged the government in a written question published on the National Assembly website on September 1. Questioning the maintenance of a certain number of social benefits such as the company vehicle for example, the parliamentarian writes that "the question of supplementary health coverage also calls for particular attention, in particular when the suspension of mutual insurance occurs at a time when the health needs of the household may be greater". To which the government responded twice.

In a first response published on September 29, he wrote that "the employer remains required to pay the contribution to the usual supplementary health coverage during the suspension period." Which then assumes that mutual insurance is well maintained during birth leave, without the new parent employee having to pay more to benefit from it. But in a correction published on October 20, the government backpedals.

Machine-translated from French