I have a priviate liability insurance in CH, and up to now, did not claim anything yet (i am a B permit holder from non EU country). Also I am not a person who claim quite often from any of my insurance (e.g, Private liability or even health insurance)
I understand that normally insurance is for some urgent issues e.g. big amount of unexpected payment. However, i know nothing is coming for free, therefore, what could be the "side effects" of a claim from the insurance company?
They would pay you for some "incident" even with a big amount (e.g. 1k or 10k), but then?
- Will this affect my next time renewal my regular permit? (e.g. get reject because of this benefit)
- Will I get some other additional obligatory payments later afterward to the insurance company or else?
- Will I get some "negative" record from the insurance company?
Insurer (and you for that matter too) has the right to cancel contract after a claim - Art. 42 VVG. You may think you can just take your business elsewhere, but pretty much every insurer asks during sign-up whether you've had an insurance cancelled by the insurer and thus would get tipped off..
Basically yes. I've heard cases where insurer cancelled as soon as after 2nd claim. Insurance is trying to run a business, not a charity. If your claims history indicates you will keep bothering them with petty claims costing them too much money, they will probably rethink terms of your relationship with them. They are not obliged to insure you (unlike mandatory health insurance - that's a different story) and free to walk away after any claim, just like you are.
Use the insurance to cover catastrophic events, not as a piggy bank.
No, why would it?
Unless you commited some kind of insurance fraud - that can indeed go into your criminal record and affect permit renewal, yes.
I don't quite agree with this generalisation, the deductible is there exactly to decide whether your insurance is for catastrophic events only or as a piggy bank.
If I am paying a high premium for the sake of a 100 chf deductible, you can be sure I will claim it on a 200 chf damage - otherwise what is the point of having a low deductible? If you/your insurance want to use the coverage as for "catastrophic events" only - fair game, but then you set the deductible to 10.000 chf and you pay a low premium
I guess you get what you pay for. I can imagine super cheap insurance will cancel as soon as you claim but most will not or they will be flogged by consumer tests and no one will be their client.
Personally I also cluster all my insurance so that's its clear if they play up I leave with all of the business - we pay roughly 5k/year and I expect to use it when I need to.
And i respectfully don't agree with yours. Premiums you're paying *on average* have to be higher than potential expected payouts, else insurer is running a charity not a business. Assuming odds are correctly factored into premium, you would be always better off self-insuring for those 200 chf events (unless having to come up with unexpected 200 chf expense out of pocket would break your neck like apparently is the case for half of americans, but I believe CH is much better off in this regard). Being able to kick out above average claimers is one weapon in insurers' arsenal to protect against abuse and mispricing.