My husband and I had a terrible experience a few weeks ago. We were meeting up at Shoppi Tivoli in Spreitenbach. He was coming straight from work and had quite a bit of equipment (two laptops, an expensive camera, several lenses, and miscellaneous stuff) in his car. Some was company property, some personal. Anyway, after parking, he moved some of the stuff to the back of the car and went inside. Someone must've been watching him because everything got stolen while we were in the mall. When we reported the theft to security, they were absolutely useless and informed us that there are no security cameras in their parking lot. To make it worse, we discovered that insurance would not cover anything

Welcome to Switzerland. There aren't even any security cameras at the airport parking lot. I'm sorry for the experience that you and your husband are going through....and I urge others reading this, to understand, that this place isn't all that save as many people project it to be. Not also that, there is a complete lack of security measures and standard procedures which makes it even more dangerous at times than notorious spots around the world.

That's a terrible thing and I'm very sorry to have read that.

Can you tell us why the insurance wouldn't cover? Was it just the way the policy was worded, or did you not have the right kind of cover? We don't yet have contents insurance as part of our house insurance and we know we need to get on to that, so I'm just wondering if this is similar.

Normally leaving things in a unattended car is an issue. Especially items of value.

That was his error. He should have made the switch BEFORE arriving at the parking lot. I did something similar in that I moved stuff from inside the car to the trunk, some one must have been watching because when I came out the trunk was empty. All of my luggage and passport plus credit cards were gone. Within the hour I had credit of over 40K US dollars on my credit card. Luckily I was not held responsible for the charges. I am surprised as most of my other personal stuff was covered by my house insurance. Stuff belonging to the office wont be covered .

Actually, it is, but under your car insurance, not your household insurance.

Tom

if you leave stuff out on display and not in the locked away in the boot then your usually not covered at all. as the op has found out

I'm aware that it likely would not have happened if he had moved the stuff beforehand. We are fairly new here and were extremely naive in assuming something like that wouldn't happen here.

Guyc, our insurance only covers house theft. We had the most basic type without any extras. We found out after it happened that insurance to cover theft from your car only costs an additional CHF 70 per year.

Thank you Captain obvious. Nothing was on display. We have a station wagon with very dark tint which makes it impossible to see inside and we locked the car. I believe we were targeted because he was seen moving stuff to the back, which, in hindsight, was rather careless.

That little? I'm getting on this right away, since we definitely aren't covered for that. While we do not have much of value I'd hate to need that insurance on the one day I do decide to put something expensive in my car.

Thank you for sharing your experience. Even though I know it doesn't help you recover your items or pay for damages, it is a valuable one to learn and I will be taking action from it.

Oh, and welcome to the forums, Zanchan! Hope you stick around and make yourself at home here.

i am sorry for your terrible experience once my car was stolen with some valuable things in it - since than i leave never anything valuable inside the car....

Thanks I plan to stick around for a while

Security cameras here need a legal basis, and so far, shopping malls or owners of parking lots are not responsible to install cameras to watch over your trunk. I'm quite happy that we don't have cameras everywhere and ...don't need it. So you have security cameras in your garden ?

You took the most basic cover presumably because it was cheap are surprised when you aren't covered, for a claim that you didn't want to pay the insurance company.

You say back, but I'm not clear if that means the boot or piled on the back seat. Either way if it's a V & A item it should be in the boot as anything else is an open invite for some.... unfortunately

I guess, OP would disagree with you.
For instance, there was an incident not too long ago, when someone at the Zurich airport slashed a plethora of car tires. The guy was never caught and the police didn't have the slightest clue, as apparently, there are no cameras at the ZH airport parking lots.

We have a station wagon, putting things in the trunk isn't an option. Also, it's a company car and insured by the company, we have no control over what is covered and what isn't. I am not blaming the insurance company or mall security. The thief is the one to blame! But I am surprised at how useless and lax the security is here. Knowing what we do now, we will obviously do things differently.

How do I delete a post? My reply to a comment got mixed up in the quote box.

Does the "station wagon" not have a load cover?

Did they smash a window to get to the "trunk"?

You should check your house insurance for "items away from the home" cover - and your car insurance for "stuff taken from the car" insurance.