Dommage-ouvrage insurance explained for owners

What is dommage-ouvrage insurance?

Dommage-ouvrage (DO) is a policy the maître d'ouvrage, meaning whoever is having the work done, must take out before the building site opens. It exists so that if structural damage shows up later, repairs get paid for straight away instead of waiting years for a court to rule on whose fault it was. The insurer pays first, then spends the following months recovering the money from the contractor's own garantie décennale insurer. Without it, that argument happens before you get a euro, and you are the one running it.

Is dommage-ouvrage insurance really mandatory for a private renovation?

Yes, in the sense that matters legally. The obligation comes from the loi Spinetta of 4 January 1978 and sits in the Code des assurances at article L242-1. It applies to anyone commissioning construction, an extension, or renovation work that touches the gros oeuvre, the structural fabric of a building: load-bearing walls, floors, roof structure. A repainted kitchen or a swapped-out tap does not trigger it. A knocked-through load-bearing wall or a raised roof does.

There is a real carve-out, and it explains why many private owners skip the policy. An individual having work done on a home for themselves or their family is exempt from the criminal penalty for not subscribing. That exemption covers the penalty, not the underlying obligation, which is a distinction insurers and notaires care about even when nobody else does. In practice this means a homeowner extending their own house will not be prosecuted for skipping dommage-ouvrage. It does not mean the insurance stops being required, and it does not remove the consequences described below.

How much does dommage-ouvrage cost and who sells it?

Specialist insurers and brokers sell dommage-ouvrage; it is not something a general contractor or a French home insurance policy bundles in. Broker price guides put the premium at roughly 1 to 4% of the total cost of works, with renovation typically priced above new build because assessing an existing structure carries more uncertainty than assessing a design on paper. On a 150,000 EUR gros oeuvre renovation, that is somewhere in the region of 1,500 to 6,000 EUR as a one-off premium, paid before work starts. Get a quote from a broker once you have a firm figure for the works; the price moves with project size and risk, so a number from a friend's project a few years ago will not be reliable.

What happens at resale if you skipped it?

This is where the exemption stops helping you. Code des assurances article L243-2 requires that any sale of the property within 10 years of the works record, in the deed itself, whether the compulsory insurance exists. If it does not, that goes on paper in front of the notaire and the buyer's lawyer.

It does not block the sale, but it hands the buyer's side a documented reason to negotiate the price down, and it does nothing to protect you: you remain personally liable to that buyer for any décennale-type defect for whatever is left of the 10-year period, because the garantie décennale follows the work through every change of owner. Without dommage-ouvrage behind you, a claim in year seven means funding the repair yourself and pursuing the original contractor's insurer on your own.

For a small job, most owners accept that risk. For anything that touches the gros oeuvre, ask for a quote before deciding to skip it, so the decision is made against a real number instead of a guess.

Dommage-ouvrage versus garantie décennale

The two are opposite sides of the same 10-year guarantee, and the confusion between them is common enough to be worth stating plainly. Garantie décennale is insurance the contractor holds, covering their liability for structural defects in their own work. Dommage-ouvrage is insurance you hold, as the person commissioning the work, and it is what pays out fast.

When a structural problem shows up, your dommage-ouvrage insurer works to a timetable fixed by the Code des assurances: 60 days to decide whether the policy applies, 90 days to present an offer, 15 days to pay once you accept. It settles with you first and argues with the contractor's décennale insurer afterwards, which is the entire point: you are not stuck waiting for that argument to finish before your roof gets fixed.