In France, there are two types of health insurance: compulsory public health insurance and voluntary private health insurance which is organized as a market. This paper deals with private health insurance. We define the market place (position and scope) according to two criteria. On the one hand, the standardization or differentiation strategies of the insurance companies, which structure competition through quality and innovation. Secondly, the type of pooling (or mutualisation) at work in insurance contracts, distinguishing between commercial pooling and solidarity-based pooling. We draw up a typology of four "ideal-type" market configurations: residual market, educated market, polarized market and autonomous market.