3 months ago I resigned from my job. I have a private health insurance. Do I need any other insurances while I am unemployed? i.e Accident insurance etc.

Also can anyone give me advice or point me in right direction as I would like to continue paying for my pansion fund. Is this possible and who would I need to speak to?

Thanks - Feryal

First off, you should never resign from your job here until you have the next one lined up. Now you are in a weak bargaining position, and the more time that passes while you are unemployed makes you less and less attractive to potential employers. Also, voluntarily resigning means you aren't eligible for the rather generous unemployment compensation from RAV/Unia.

When you leave a company without having the next one lined up, all the money in your pension fund gets transferred to a "Freizugikeitskonto" at a bank (sort of a holding account until you get your next job and Pensionfund). That Konto earns a fixed interest rate, not connected to and usually lower than the federally mandated minimum interest rate for pensions, currently 1.5%. So you might as well just put any money you want to save for your Pension in your normal bank account, and roll it into your future pensionfund once you get it.

This is not the OPs question, but anyway, it is simple not true.

You need accident insurance in addition to health insurance. If you contact your health insurance provider and explain you are not working at present, they should be able to provide you with accident insurance on the same policy / insurance card etc. I'd do this as soon as possible... better safe than sorry.

I'm not sure if this will be back dated.

About your pension... it depends which 'pillar' you're talking about.

I was told recently (by invalidity insurance people) that I should be paying into the 'first pillar' - AVS whilst unemployed. The letter stated that "every person who ceases their paid activity (as employee or independent worker) has to take care of their affiliation AVS (as an economically non-active person)" (Sorry for the horrible translation, it's in French and is one of those sentences where I understand it perfectly but don't know how to express it in English). In my case, social services make the payments for me. You need to contact the social insurance agency for your region to fill out a questionnaire which will then be sent to the cantonal authority (again, sorry for the translation - in French it is "Agence d'assurances sociales" and "Caisse de compensation cantonale).

As far as the 'second pillar' - the occupational pension scheme - is concerned, when I became unemployed I was told it was 'frozen' and would be reopened when I got a new job. As it's for people who are working, I'm not sure you'll be able to pay into it when you're not economically active.

The 'third pillar' is a voluntary private pension. I don't know much about it... I have an account but have never earned enough to put any money in! I'd imagine your best bet if you want to put something by for the future would be to open up one of those... as far as I know there is a certain amount you can save each year.

You might get more specific advice if you gave a little more detail, for example, did you quit your job to take a sabbatical, raise a family, because of a change in circumstances, do you want to set up as an independent worker... not wanting to be nosy but I'm sure it would help more experienced forum members give you advice.

Hope that helps.

You resigned 3 months ago, but when did you stop working?

You should get some personal accident insurance very soon, as your company used to pay for that. Usually your health insurance will offer that, from tomorrow, until you receive income again!

Next you should register at the RAV as soon as possible, and then your AHV pension and accident insurance will be paid as deductions from your unemployment allowance.

You may pay into your second and third pillar funds as you wish to.

Not true, it just means that you are liable to have punishment days to which there is a maximum (I think of 90 days but I may be wrong). Each case is looked at individually and punishment days are then assigned. I know a case where somebody resigned because the project was finishing and the work left to do was not interesting and he got only 7 punishment days on top of the usual waiting days.

My friend quit because her boss was a b@st!rd and he got Zero days penalty.