Life insurance
Protection for your family in the event of death or incapacity to work.
Why this matters
If a family’s main income disappears, the survivors carry not only the grief but also the rent or mortgage, health insurance premiums and the children’s daily lives. Benefits from the AHV and the pension fund often cover only part of this – and for cohabiting couples, the AHV pays the surviving partner no survivors’ pension at all. Without additional cover, that can mean selling the family home or radically rearranging life.
Life insurance is voluntary, but in certain situations almost indispensable: for families with one main income, for homeowners with a mortgage, for cohabiting couples and for the self-employed without a pension fund. Banks sometimes require death cover as part of the financing, for example with indirect amortisation. If pure term insurance is taken out within pillar 3a, the premiums are also tax-deductible.
What you get out of it
Your family is financially protected if something happens to you.
Incapacity to work can be included — the greater risk during your working life.
A clear separation of savings and risk: you see what you're paying for.
What we take care of for you
- Needs analysis: what must be covered in the event of death or disability?
- Comparison of pure risk and mixed (endowment) policies
- Coordination with your pension fund and pillar 3a
- Beneficiary arrangements and tax questions properly settled
The advice is free for you — we are remunerated by the insurance companies through brokerage commissions and will disclose these on request.
Tips from our consultations
What we tell our clients time and again – free of charge, even before the first meeting.
Pure term life insurance costs a fraction of an endowment policy and covers the actual risk in full. Saving can be done flexibly alongside, for example in a pillar 3a account or in funds. Endowment contracts, by contrast, tie you down for decades, and an early exit usually means losses.
Marriage, divorce, a birth or a new partnership: the beneficiary order in your policy should keep pace with such events. Especially in cohabitation, your partner only receives anything if he or she is expressly designated. A short check every few years prevents bitter surprises.
If your main aim is to secure the mortgage, you can choose a policy with a decreasing death lump sum – the insured sum falls in step with the remaining debt. That is considerably cheaper than constant cover. Clarify at the same time what protection the bank actually requires.
With an older endowment life policy, the surrender value in the first years is well below the premiums paid in, and old contracts sometimes contain terms that no longer exist today. So have an existing contract analysed before you cancel it or sign a new one.
