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| Hi!
I looked around a bunch and didn't see this situation covered. We have a one year assignment which has about 10 months remaining. The company has provided a furnished apartment. The contents they provided e.g. furniture, beds, appliances are covered by them for theft and presumably fire, water damage, etc. We, of course, have clothing and some electronics, e.g. TV, computer, monitor, laptop, camera, etc.
So what insurance should we be getting? More specifically what amount of insurance? As far as the rental agent goods that should be covered by liability if we or our guests do damage. As far as our "stuff" we need to get household insurance. Here's where the questions lie. Since most of the "stuff" in the apartment is theirs and not ours we should only need to get insurance in the amount of our "stuff", correct? Just for arguments sake say 20,000. However, that's probably going to look low or would this be an acceptable number to put?
Question 2, we're here for 10 months. I'm going to guess that we would minimally need to get a 1 year policy, correct?
Question 3, we might drive a friend's car or scooter occasionally. What should we do here? | |
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Hi there,
You are correct in that any damage caused to your landlords "stuff" will be covered under your liability insurance.
If you have this already, double-check your policy document as you may have a deductible on there (this is generally 200CHF per "event").
If you don't have it already, then when signing up, you can choose to have a deductible or not (with the majority of companies).
With regards to your own possessions, this would be contents insurance.
Your contents insurance will cover you against theft, water damage and fire (depending on which canton you live in).
The amount to insure has to be the replacement value.
i.e. if absolutely everything you owned was lost in a fire, would 20'000CHF be enough to replace it all? (Swiss prices remember!)
People can sometimes underestimate how much they actually have so you need to have a quick think about it.
You could do it by room, for example. Or else by category.
e.g. you have approximately 50 CDs, at an average price of 15CHF to replace = 750CHF
you have 10 pairs of shoes/trainers, at an average price of 100CHF = 1'000CHF worth of shoes etc.
Most insurance companies have an average amount you should be insuring which is based on i) the number of people in the home (children under 14 are counted as 1/2 a person, lol) and ii) the number of rooms.
So, if there are 2 of you in a 3.5 room flat, you should be looking at around 76'000CHF.
Obviously as a lot of the furniture etc. doesn't belong to you, then you can lower this quite a bit.
Question 2 : Yes, you'd have to take a policy with a minimum length of 1 year. This type of policy is generally paid annually so when you do leave, contact your insurance company and they will reimburse any excess amounts you may have paid (in this case 2 months worth).
Question 3 : It is possible to take additional insurance on the liability part to include driving a 3rd party's vehicle. I would suggest you take this if you're planning on driving other people's vehicles regularly.
Alternatively, you could sign up for the Mobility program :
http://www.mobility.ch/en/pub/index.cfm
Hope this helps
Linear Mode
