Could be a bit late but..

My car insurance expires on 31st Dec, and I have a new policy here (actually, I've have had it for 2 months and was intending to just pay it) - however after reading something here about car insurance I just checked and the new policy is for 2 years (the old one was for 3 years).

As there's nothing to sign does this simply come into force on 1st Jan as I haven't sent any kind of cancellation? I really wanted just a one year policy but that's what I get for not reading the small print I guess

yes, you need to send the cancellation letter at least 3 months before the end of the policy UNLESS the price has increased then it must be recieved before the last day of the policy is in force.

I send a cancellation letter along with the newly signed contract.

I got the renewal in October, so it was already less than 3 months. So, if it was already too late to change (as the premium wasn't increasing) how did they decide on 2 years? should I be thankful they didn't just make it 5 years or 10?

thats why they send it after the 3 months....

check on your old ORIGINAL policy if that was 1 year, if it was thell them to sove it and re issue you a 1 year policy and then send the cancellation latter straight away so its not forgotton next time.

the original policy was for 3 years - that should have been enough of a prompt for me to cancel in good time..

I bough the new car and ask "Zurich" (i had insurance with them with my old car) to make the offer for the new one.
They made me an offer for 2k. I compared them in Comparis and it was a rip off.
At the end i chose Basler which cost me 1.3k so 700 chf less.

In any case, you cannot cancel your insurance without returning the plates of the car to the DMV.

And you can cancel your insurance at any time by returning the plates to the DMV!

Tom

You cannot use comparis to see if the cover was the same; if there was a 700 buck difference I will bet my bottom dollar it is nothing like as comprehensive

Hi Tom,

How can i 'return the plates' but keep the car?
Do you mean that i can somehow unregister it, return the plates, cancelling the insurance. Then get new plates?

I was told the same, park the car turn in the plates , cancel your insurance, then put the car in another name, then back into yours, redoing everything with another insurance provider in your name. A bit complicated to change insurance..

Do you think its necessary to do the name change part?
As i have learned in the last few days, its possibly to take the car off the road for a period, i.e. return the plates, get a tax & insurance refund, and then later apply for plates again.
But are you saying that in this case, i would be obliged to use (or automatically) the same insurer?

With the right insurance guy it's pretty easy to change car insurance.

I kind of got screwed over by my insurance. We had an insurance guy coming by anyway. He made me an offer which was by far the cheapest I could find anyway.

He then took my car's papers to the Strassenverkehrsamt, gave me a new car for a couple of seconds and then changed me back to my car with the insurance. I was able to also cancel immediately