Hi there,

We own a property in Haute Nendaz which we use ourselves about 10 weeks of the year for skiing, hiking and cycling. The rest of the time we rent the apartment out.

Up until now we have insured our property (building, contents and 3rd-party liability) through a UK insurance agent.

We have just received a letter from them telling us that they are declining to renew our insurance policy. Having tried to find an alternative UK insurer we are shocked to find that it's seemingly impossible to do now. One insurer even point-blank told us that they "won't touch Switzerland with a bargepole", but declined to say why!

Can anyone please suggest a Swiss insurance company who might insure our property for contents, buildings and 3rd-party liability, preferrably as one "job-lot", rather than using different insurers for each... oh, and our insurance lapses in two weeks!

My partner speaks pretty good French, but it would be helpful if you know of any that have English-speaking staff, just in case it gets technical

Many thanks in advance,
Rob

Hi Rob, pretty well all of them will. You start with the big boys like Zurich and Axa Winterthur then maybe try Allianz

All of them. Zurich Connect online is pretty reasonable.

Welcome to the forum Rob

Thanks to everyone so far, and for the welcome.

Just realised my typo of "unsurers" in the title... Freudian slip?!

Out of interest, does anyone have any idea why UK insurers are seemingly so reluctant to help us?

yes, I thought you were trying to be funny!

Too much like hard work? Plus they know claims will be paid in Swiss francs and premiums will be in pounds...

It's a non standard risk.

Personally I find this unusual.

I would ask for more detail about the declination rather than accept the "Barge pole" theory.

Specifically I would enquire about the "territorial scope of cover"..... did your previous insurance actually cover Switzerland????

If not, then you have been paying premium on a cover they can't offer and you should be (at the very least) entitled to some premium backpay.
(assuming that you had disclosed that the property was in fact in Switzerland).


Midfield general was correct before. There is no reason why any of the Swiss majors wouldn't cover you.

In addtion to the previous suggestions, I would also recommend AXA Winterthur as well.

Not sure if it's available in your area, but I'm very happy with my insurer.

www.baloise.ch

The website is in Swiss official languages only, no english, but if you call you can get someone who speaks English.

I’m surprised you got it insured with a UK company in the first place.

A UK policy would be written under UK insurance law and could be unsuitable for a foreign property.

Us too. Or rather more annoying than unusal.

I fear it may be a trend though as this seems to suggest:

http://www.assetsure.com/holiday-hom...tzerland-c.htm

If I can bear to I'll ring my current insurers back and see if I can prise out of them exactly why they won't provide cover any longer, and report back.

Well it did seem pukkah. It was a specific holiday home policy with Hiscox.

I suspect a few Spanish / Irish properties that were in negative equity suffered more fire claims than usual.

From their website:-

Sorry, wrong link... I meant here.

As you can see, Hiscox stopped overseas holiday home insurance from this year.

They do kindly provide a link to an alternative holiday home insurer, but as you'll see, Switzerland is conspicuous by its absence.

They dont want to insure assets in CH because the risk of the high value of the potential claims, due to the fact that everything is so expensive here, is much higher than a reasonable premium and if they put the premiums up to cover the risk potential, no one would bother contracting the service...so....out goes the product into the bin!

High Value = High Premium, some LLoyds underwriters were born for this type of risk, however it's non standard, probably adverse claims record so your standard insurance co just does not want to know.

Reminds me of the Lloyds underwriter who covered Cosworth Sierra's about 15 years ago, they had 103 cars covered & 98 got stolen. I doubt they invited renewal for the 5 cars left!

Hi there,

I just sent you a PM.

We would be glad to look at this for you and could simply cover this with our new expat and English division.

Best,
David