You're probably obliged to cover your own personal property - as the tenant of an apartment when we arrived we were obliged to insure our contents - the apartment block was insured by the landlord. As a sub letting arrangement I'm not sure if you'd be flagged up by their system - it's a few years ago since we arrived but I think the trigger to ECA was our registration as residents at the Commune. If so then a few weeks after you register you'll probably get a little letter with the value calculator.


Cheers

Chris

I have renter's insurance for an apartment in Zurich. In addition have a small apartment in Canton Vaud, where I stay and work during the week. Do I still need to get the ECA insurance, or am I ok to just add my small apartment onto my Zurich policy? I would hope if the insurance is mandatory you can at least pick which company to be insured by...otherwise this ECA place has a great little monopoly going.

As the apt. is in Vaud, you would need the ECA coverage for the natural disasters. You likely could cover the other elements with your private insurance, if they also cover policies in Vaud.

We are renting a fully-furnished-and-fully-equipped apartment in Vaud. This includes dishes, pots and pans, utensils, bedding (sheets, pillows,...), towels, etc. and of course all the furniture. When I got a first letter from ECA, I told them about my situation. They ignored my explanation and they sent me a second letter, identical to the first, telling me that the insurance is compulsory.

Today I called them. Here's the deal. Their insurance is for fire and other natural disasters. It covers the building and its content. In Vaud, YOU CAN NOT HAVE THIS KIND OF INSURANCE FROM A PRIVATE COMPANY. ONLY ECA CAN COVER YOUR HOME AND ITS CONTENT AGAINST FIRE AND OTHER NATURAL DISASTERS. THE INSURANCE IS COMPULSARY.

Ok, so I tell them that the building and its content belong to the owner and the owner does have this insurance with ECA. Well, that is not good enough. According to Contrôle des habitants, I live in this apartment and presumebly the ECA's computer system is too stupid to realize that the owner of the apartment already has the insurance.

So I say "Since I know that the owner has an insurance with you, can I just ignore your letters for another 10 months (after which I go home to Canada)?" Not quite. The law is the law. So here's what we have to do. The owner and I must jointly write a letter to ECA in which we explain everything I have already said to the ECA and in which the owner indicates their policy number (which, one would think, the ECA should have been able to find when I told them the name and the address of the owner)...

Anyway, after 6 weeks here I am starting to believe that the Swiss are sick. I mean really sick!

I guess you haven't been softened up by the Billag people yet.

When I lived in Aubonne I put the value as the very minimum, I think it was CHF 15,000. They wrote several times telling me it was not enough. I wrote back, "Come round anytime and take a look, I have nothing!" they didn't, and gave up, and I just paid something like CHF 50,-- per year.