Property insurance
Protects stock, IT infrastructure and workshop against fire, water, natural hazards and theft.
Why this matters
A burst water pipe over the weekend, and on Monday the machines in the workshop are standing centimetres deep in water: without insurance, you replace fittings, tools and goods from your own pocket. With a fire, a six-figure sum builds up quickly, before a single franc has been earned again. Many businesses also underestimate how fast the value of their equipment grows – new IT, an extra oven, a bigger warehouse. If you never adjust the sum insured, you are underinsured when it matters, and the payout is reduced proportionately.
Property insurance is particularly important for businesses with their own stock of goods, expensive machinery or plenty of customers on the premises – from craft businesses and restaurants to medical practices. In Switzerland, the building itself is compulsorily covered in most cantons through the cantonal buildings insurer; the movable contents of the business – what insurers call chattels – are, in principle, insured voluntarily and are the company’s own affair. With Swiss providers, natural hazard damage such as flooding or storms is built into fire insurance under uniform rules. The business pays the premium itself, but it is deductible as a business expense.
What you get out of it
Stock, machinery and IT are insured at the right value.
Fire, water, natural hazards, theft — the risks that threaten your livelihood are covered.
No underinsurance that gets expensive when you claim.
What we take care of for you
- Recording and valuing your business equipment and fittings
- Comparison of providers, including natural hazard and glass cover
- Regular adjustments to reflect new investments
- Claims handling including expert reports
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.
Report larger investments to your insurer as they happen, not only at the next contract renewal. A new machine or an enlarged warehouse increases the value of your chattels – and with it the risk of underinsurance, which leads to reduced payouts in the event of a claim.
Make sure that fixtures and goods are insured at replacement value, as new. With current-value cover you receive only the residual worth of the old machine – yet you have to buy a new one. Precisely with older, still fully functional equipment, this difference is decisive.
Tools in the van, goods at the customer’s, the notebook in the home office: standard policies often cover only the business premises. Check whether property away from base and in transit is included – for mobile businesses, that is frequently a bigger gap than the premises themselves.
Most businesses can carry small losses such as a broken window themselves. A higher retention lowers the premium noticeably – the only crucial thing is that the existential risks of fire, water and natural hazards remain fully covered. Save on the small stuff, never on the catastrophe.