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That's how satisfied the Swiss are with their health insurance

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That's how satisfied the Swiss are with their health insurance

In 2020, too, numerous Swiss respondents said they were satisfied with their health insurance. It should be noted that not everyone is equally satisfied or dissatisfied, but that there are regional and age-related differences.

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Average satisfaction is great

Even if many Swiss like to complain frequently and often about their health insurance, it is usually only individual aspects that cause dissatisfaction. Usually it is more the case that there are brief differences regarding possible benefits from the health insurance, but these can be resolved. The following points were important for assessing the overall satisfaction of the insured with their health insurance:

    • Evaluation of employee friendliness
    • Commitment of the consultants and the support team
    • Comprehensibility of the information given
    • Correctness of the accounts
    • Billing transparency
    • Speed of service provision
    • Accessibility of employees
    • Relationship between premiums and benefits

The evaluation of all these points resulted in a general satisfaction that can be seen as an overall grade. Customer satisfaction was between 7.8 and 8.0 points (with a total of 10 points). This is surprising, because it is not uncommon for health insurers to make negative reports in the press, but apparently the insured are nevertheless satisfied or mostly satisfied.

Differences in the satisfaction of the insured

Above all, the friendliness of the employees is praised by the insured. You will feel well advised here and, above all, treated with respect and friendliness. The survey also praised the clarity of the invoices and their traceability. Most insured persons are also satisfied that the health insurance company is usually easy to reach.

The price-performance ratio, however, is often classified as rather poor, the premiums appear too high to the insured. The goodwill for reimbursements is also rated as rather poor, and the insurers could still improve this.

The regional differences in customer satisfaction are interesting. In French-speaking Switzerland, for example, people are significantly more dissatisfied with their health insurance than those who live in German-speaking Switzerland. Age is also a major difference. Older insured persons in particular seem to be satisfied with their health insurance, while younger health insurance members get annoyed more often. The reason may be the comparatively high premiums that are not matched by any performance.

Because: Younger insured persons hardly need the services of the health insurance company, which is why they usually look less at the services and primarily at the premiums they have to pay when making an assessment.

These health insurances stand for a high level of customer satisfaction

As every year, a ranking was drawn up that shows customer satisfaction. A total of 10 points were awarded, with the top grade being 8.2. The Agrisano health insurance company was able to climb the podium. Then these health insurance companies followed:

  • Swica: 8.1
  • Helsana: 8.1
  • KPT: 8.0
  • Atupri: 8.0
  • Sanitas: 7.9
  • ÖKK: 7.9
  • EGK: 7.9
  • Concordia: 7.9
  • CSS: 7.8
  • Sympany: 7.7
  • Visana: 7.7
  • Groupe Mutuel: 7.4
  • Assura: 6.9

Conclusion: insured persons in Switzerland satisfied with their health insurance

The results of the surveys show that the Swiss are satisfied with their health insurance in most cases. Above all, the friendliness of the employees at the insurance company is emphasized again and again. However, it is the younger insured who are more dissatisfied, which may be because they use benefits less often.

In some cases, they pay high premiums that are not matched by any benefits. Older insured persons, on the other hand, who benefit from the work of the health insurance companies, see the ratio as more balanced and are more satisfied with the price-performance ratio.

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Legal protection insurance: really everything insured?

Legal protection insurance: really everything insured?

Most Swiss people who have legal expenses insurance feel well protected. Far from it, unfortunately, the protection does not extend nearly as far as it should. Many areas of law are not covered at all.

The injured feel they are right

In most cases, anyone who suffers damage feels right. This applies to tenants who struggle with constant mold growth on the walls in their apartment. This also applies to the driver of a rented car who was involved in an accident through no fault of their own. Or someone would like to build a house and cannot start because the neighbors keep objecting and delaying the start of construction.

At first glance, the injured party is right, but the insurance company simply does not want to pay! Now it is not uncommon for a court case to be sought that is about the case law. But anyone who has ever had something to do with a trial in court knows that being right and being right are two different things. Legal proceedings are expensive and can quickly run into several thousand francs.

Even if the injured party is right, he still has to make an advance payment for the costs of legal proceedings, whereby the advance payment alone can quickly end up in the four-digit range. The advance payment will vary depending on the amount in dispute and the canton. But it will always be expensive! If processes are carried out through all three instances in Switzerland, CHF 100,000 or more can quickly come together.

Even those who win the process have to bear a high share of the costs, because the difference in costs that the loser cannot pay is usually passed on by the court to the other parties involved in the proceedings. So it is not surprising that many Swiss take out legal expenses insurance and henceforth believe that they are above all safe from costs. But this is not the case.

Legal protection insurance is more likely to mediate

It seems understandable that legal expenses insurance does not want to pay immediately. After all, the premiums for this insurance usually cost less than a single hour a year with a lawyer. Therefore, disputes that occur particularly frequently are often excluded. Examples of this are disputes in family law or inheritance law, these tend to get out of hand and lead to lengthy and, above all, cost-intensive disputes in court.

Personal and tax law are also not covered by legal insurances, although there are usually a few providers who cover these areas, sometimes at very high sums.

Legal protection insurance is offered as individual private legal protection or as traffic legal protection or as a combination of both types of insurance. Usually the package is cheaper, so it is also taken out more often. Traffic legal protection insurance can also be important for pedestrians or cyclists, because they are also considered road users.

In view of the fact that so many areas are not covered at all, legal protection insurance makes only limited sense. Experts advise that the existence-threatening risks such as death, disability, household effects and liability should be covered, and only then should legal protection insurance be considered.

However, this not only prevents disputes by, for example, only paying for mediation, but also the free choice of a lawyer. There is now no longer any insurance in Switzerland that allows a free choice of lawyer.
In addition, insured persons must observe the waiting period: Anyone who is already involved in a legal dispute can no longer take out legal protection insurance and claim its benefits for an ongoing case.

This is precisely what the waiting period is intended to prevent without disputes between the insured and the insurance company.

Conclusion: Legal protection insurance does not always ensure justice

The insurance companies are happy to sell special products within the legal protection insurance, which are intended to ensure that the insured person gets his or her rights in individual cases. In most cases, however, this will not be the case and the insured will at most get the first hour of advice from the lawyer replaced by the insurance.

Many areas of law are excluded by the insurance, these are precisely those in which disputes occur particularly frequently. In this respect, legal protection insurance is certainly one of the most easily dispensable types of insurance.

Personal liability insurance is also a kind of passive legal protection insurance, it at least fends off unjustified claims by third parties. In addition, many areas of law are already included in other insurance policies, so legal protection insurance is only recommended to a limited extent.

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Prevention: important tips for saving taxes

Prevention: important tips for saving taxes

Towards the end of the year, considerations start: How can taxes be saved? The area of pensions in particular offers several options for this. However, some of them are not valid indefinitely.

Deposit maximum amounts

One of the most important tax-saving tips is about pillar 3a: Most people know this tip, but still far too few use it. It is about the private provision in the above-mentioned pillar, because the payment here can be claimed for tax purposes. Employed persons should register the reference date? 18. December? note, by then the maximum possible amount of CHF 6,826 should have been paid in.

Only then is the amount still deductible for the current year 2020. However, if you pay into an existing account at the counter, you can do so until December 30th. For the self-employed, they can count up to 20 percent of their net income as a maximum amount if they do not belong to a pension fund. A maximum of CHF 34,128 may be credited.

Use the 2nd pillar as well

Payments into the 2nd pillar can also be deducted from tax. It is about occupational pension provision. In individual cases, it can make sense to make voluntary additional payments that go into the pension fund. From a tax point of view, this is always worthwhile when earnings are high in the relevant years. This usually applies in the last few years before retirement.

If you want to draw the capital from the second or third pillar of your pension, you should take into account that this does not significantly increase the tax burden. A tip: With a staggered withdrawal of pension payments, these can be spread over several tax periods, which reduces the tax burden in the individual period.

Tax tips outside of the pension plan

When it comes to saving taxes, the focus is not only on retirement provision. Other tips are also important, which we do not want to withhold from you at this point:

    • dentist
      The medical costs that are not billed to the health insurance company may be assessed for tax purposes and reduce the taxable income. For this, however, the costs must exceed five percent of the adjusted income. Usually this is hardly the case for illness and accident costs. But if you have, for example, completed a comprehensive dental treatment or bought new glasses, it can be worthwhile to add the costs.

    • donate
      Many people donated to aid organizations in 2020, also because of the corona pandemic. Donation expenses can be deducted from tax if they were used for charitable purposes. However, they must add up to at least 100 francs per year and can only be offset against a maximum of 20 percent of net income. Anyone who wants to make donations must have the proof of donation to hand.

    • Debt interest
      What many do not know: Debt interest can also be deducted from tax on personal loans. It is important that the interest components are deducted here, because the actual repayment amount is not tax deductible. The interest portion that accrues on the loan amount is accounted for by federal tax on the one hand and income tax on the other.

    • Investments
      House or apartment owners can be happy because they can also deduct renovation costs. You usually have the choice between a lump sum or deducting the actual costs. With a lump sum, a maximum of ten percent of the imputed rental value can usually be applied. It therefore makes sense to work out in advance which variant is the better choice.

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The end of the Libor mortgage is imminent

The end of the Libor mortgage is imminent

For a long time, Libor mortgages were the cheaper option, while fixed-rate mortgages were usually the most expensive. But the Libor is to be abolished by the end of 2021. Money market mortgages will still exist, say the financial experts.

The Libor mortgage as the most common form

In the past, a Libor mortgage has always been particularly attractive and has turned out to be a much cheaper form compared to a fixed-rate mortgage. Actually, Libor mortgages are also only fixed-rate mortgages, albeit with very short terms, usually only a few months.

The LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) determines the amount of interest that is charged for this type of mortgage. The Libor is an average of the interest rates that are relevant for banks. The interest rate would correspond to what banks would borrow or borrow on the money market in Europe. The term for this borrowed money is always set at twelve months.

Now the Libor will be abolished by the end of 2021. It will be replaced by another interest rate that appears more suitable as a reference interest rate.

That brings the abolition of the Libor

The experts are of the opinion that the Libor is too unrepresentative and that there are no real deals that can be concluded for some of the maturities of the Libor. In addition, the Libor is now to be abolished by the end of 2021 because many banks had used it for their own benefit and reaped the profits they made on interest rate derivatives themselves. The Libor also helped to avoid losses on interest rate derivatives, but again thanks to the influence of the banks in their own favor.

The principle of the money market mortgage will still exist after the end of the Libor, but it will then be called a different one. In Switzerland it will be the Saron, the? Swiss Average Rate Overnight ?. Unlike the Libor, the Saron is calculated on the basis of transactions that have actually been carried out, with the SNB and SIX as exchange operators being responsible for calculating the Saron. It should not be possible to manipulate the Saron.

Most money market mortgages are only designed for a term of three or six months. This will not apply to the Saron, because it represents the interest rate for a single day. The National Bank has put together a working group which, in turn, has calculated various options for using the Saron for money market mortgages. A total of seven variants have come out here, whereby a common component of the Saron is always the Compounded Saron. This represents an average value of the Saron in the past.

Many banks have limited the Libor, which is still valid, to a term until the end of 2021. Others no longer offer such mortgages at all and recommend the common fixed-rate mortgages to their customers. The reason: the bank earns significantly more on a fixed-rate mortgage than on a money market mortgage, and customers cannot simply switch to a more affordable form of mortgage as soon as interest rates rise.

Experts suspect that many banks will use the changeover from Libor to Saron to raise interest rates directly or to achieve larger margins.

Conclusion: The end of the Libor mortgage is imminent

The time will come at the end of 2021 and there will be no more Libor mortgages. Some banks are already no longer granting such mortgages and prefer to sell their customers the fixed-rate mortgages, which are much less attractive to the mortgagee.

This type of mortgage is better for the bank as it is more expensive for customers. From the point of view of the banks it is understandable that the Libor should be exchanged in favor of the Saron, which is better for them, from the point of view of the customers it is now: keep your eyes open when buying a mortgage!

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New kitchen, new home insurance?

New kitchen, new home insurance?

Insurers regularly receive inquiries from insured persons: Do they have to adjust their home insurance because they have made a new purchase? The answer to this is very simple: if the value of the household effects increases, the sum insured must also be adjusted.

How is what insured?

First of all, it must be clear what actually belongs to household effects, because there is household insurance on the one hand, and building insurance on the other. The former secures everything that is not firmly attached to the building. This means that electronic devices are covered by household insurance as well as furniture. Building insurance, however, is important for all the things that are firmly connected to the house.

Stairs and doors are good examples of this, and bathroom furnishings are also included here. If a new kitchen is now purchased, it does not belong to the household contents insurance, but falls within the scope of the building insurance.

The reason for this classification is easily explained: The kitchen is one of the so-called? Purpose-defining facilities? of the house, without the fitted kitchen the kitchen would not be usable as such. This means that the refrigerator also belongs to the building insurance and not to the household items.
The building insurance covers all damage caused by fire or natural hazards, storms or floods.

Buildings insurance will not cover an earthquake because the risk of such an earthquake occurring in our part of the world is too low. It is true that there is the option of taking out private earthquake insurance, but it only really makes sense in areas where such a risk is actually to be expected.

Adjust insurance value?

A new kitchen does not have to be registered and insured separately with household contents insurance. The situation is different in building insurance. Here the kitchen is usually already included in the insurance value. If a new kitchen is purchased, the value of which is significantly higher than the old one, the insurance value should be adjusted.

Today, new kitchens usually have more noble and high-quality materials, very high-quality built-in appliances or a certain technical "bells and whistles" that of course significantly increases the value of the furniture. The sum insured should therefore be checked after purchasing new kitchen furniture. If it no longer seems appropriate, an increase in the amount is advisable.

If the insured value is not adjusted, however, this can be a major disadvantage for the insured. Because if damage occurs, the insurer only pays as far as it has to. There is a risk of underinsurance if the actual building value or the value of the things that are insured in the building insurance is significantly higher than the value recorded in the insurance.

This will only take over the agreed coverage amount. Anything beyond this in terms of value must be paid by the insured himself. If the money is not available from your own reserves, rebuilding after damage will be difficult and usually has to be carried out with significantly lower-quality products.

Tip: In the cantons

    • Uri
    • Schwyz
    • Obwalden
    • Appenzell Inner Rhodes

building insurance is mandatory for property owners. In Ticino, Valais and Geneva, however, it is voluntary; in the other cantons there is cantonal and compulsory building insurance.

Conclusion: A new kitchen does not belong in the household contents insurance

The new kitchen is not a case for home contents insurance, as this only insures things that are not connected to the building. However, the fitted kitchen is installed and thus firmly connected to the house. It falls under the field of building insurance. In this case, however, the building value should always be adjusted if the kitchen is of very high quality and in terms of its value is significantly higher than the previous kitchen. It increases the value of the facility and thus the building.

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The real deal: compulsory insurance for dog owners

The real deal: compulsory insurance for dog owners

There is no doubt that a dog enriches the lives of its owners. However, if the dog causes damage, it reduces the joy of living together: Damage can be extremely expensive! Liability insurance is therefore mandatory.

Dog owners have a responsibility

A dog owner is not only responsible for his beloved four-legged friend, but also for the people who come into contact with the animal. When walking through the park, there can be a lot of people! It is not for nothing that dog liability insurance is compulsory in many cantons of Switzerland.

Because: If the animal causes damage, the animal owner is fully liable for it. If necessary with the entire property and until the damage has been paid! In view of the amount of costs that arise in the event of personal injury including financial loss, the benefits are rarely financed from the private assets of the pet owner.

But property damage can also be very expensive. It is good if there is insurance that pays for the damage incurred and relieves the wallet of the pet owner.

Some cantons do not yet make dog owners compulsory, but in most cantons a dog owner must be able to prove that they have insurance. The breed of the dog is irrelevant.

A small dog can cause just as much damage as a big one! After all, it's not always about bite injuries, which can vary in severity depending on the size of the bit. But even a small dog can run out onto the street and cause an accident there. The damage to vehicles and people is immense regardless of the size of the dog.

Tip: Anyone who does not own their dog for private pleasure, but uses the animal for commercial purposes, must be able to show company liability insurance.

Choose the right liability insurance

Personal liability insurance includes dog liability insurance, so this does not have to be taken out as a separate insurance. However, it is important to check whether the agreed coverage is sufficient.

The amounts of coverage differ depending on the insurance, they can be adjusted individually. Where liability insurance is compulsory, the canton requires a minimum amount of coverage. This amounts to one million francs in the canton of Aargau, for example, and even five million francs in Appenzell-Ausserrhoden.

In the canton of Friborg, on the other hand, there is no mandatory amount of coverage, but you must have a corresponding insurance. In the Canton of Neuchâtel, however, as in Nidwalden, there is no compulsory insurance.

In addition to sufficient coverage, which must be taken into account before taking out insurance, it is important to know which damage is actually covered by dog liability insurance. If the dog runs out onto the street and causes damage there, this is usually insured. But if the dog scratches the doors in a rented apartment, the insurance does not have to pay.

If the damage occurred suddenly and unexpectedly, it will be paid, but if the dog scratched for several years and the damage was caused with open eyes, the insurance company can refuse to provide a service. Grossly negligent behavior on the part of the pet owner is also not guaranteed!

Furthermore, it should be noted that the insurance company will only ever pay the agreed amount minus the deductible. This must be applied in each case of damage or up to an annual limit.

Conclusion: Personal liability insurance is indispensable

If, as a dog owner, you do not want to face unpleasant costs that you have to bear yourself and that can also be extremely high, you should strive for good liability insurance. This means that this should have reasonable coverage of at least three million francs.

The reason: Personal injury can quickly become very expensive and is usually associated with financial losses. These, in turn, can only be covered with a suitable insurance policy in most cases, because very few dog owners will have the equity necessary to settle the damage. In addition, insurance is compulsory in most cantons in Switzerland.

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Covid-19: Train with a fitness subscription in the studio or stay fit in another way?

Covid-19: Train with a fitness subscription in the studio or stay fit in another way?

The Federal Council has decided that a tougher course should be taken against Corona. Now all fitness enthusiasts have bad luck and uncertainty is spreading: can I still go to the gym?

Current regulations for the gym and indoor swimming pool

Given that the requirements are changing at breakneck speed, it is important to note that the restrictions apply at the time of this writing. Nobody currently knows what will be in the next week! At the moment, however, the gym and indoor swimming pool are still allowed, albeit with restrictions.

This means that only individual people or small groups of up to 15 people are allowed to exercise together indoors. Gymnastics on equipment, Zumba, yoga and weight training are only allowed if a mask is worn and if the prescribed distance from other people is to be observed. Furthermore, the sports room must be well ventilated at all times. The same requirements also apply to practicing water sports.

If you usually meet up for sport in pairs and want to play tennis together, you don't have to do without it. It is important that a mask is worn or that the necessary distance is maintained. The aspect of distance should not be a problem, at least in tennis. Even when ice skating, jogging, cross-country skiing or hiking tours, nobody has to do sports with the mask. These outdoor sports can be practiced very well with the necessary distance. It is therefore advisable to look for at most one training partner and move the training outside, which is not always easy given the approaching winter. Maybe it's worth switching from tennis to cross-country skiing?

What about physical contact sports?

The cuddling course is over and that also applies to sports with physical contact. Football, martial arts or dancing is now forbidden, because all sports in which the necessary distance cannot be maintained are no longer allowed to be practiced. However, if special training sessions take place for these sports, in which, for example, the technique is trained or if it is a one-to-one training session, this is certainly allowed.

The restrictions mentioned for sports with physical contact apply to all adolescents and adults. Children and adolescents up to the age of 16 do not have to adhere to them, they can continue to do their sport. However, no competitions may be held.

Bad luck for everyone who has trained for a championship: grassroots football is particularly suffering from the measures, because championships have to be canceled. Thus, although the appropriate training may take place at least for children and young people, the championship itself will not be held. The committees of the football associations have determined that health protection is paramount. However, what is spoken here is an interruption and not an interruption. This means that practically an early winter break will be taken, the remaining games of the championship will be postponed to the coming spring.

Conclusion: patience is required

At the moment, nobody knows exactly how long the current regulations will apply and how they will affect life in the future. If you don't want to get out of training entirely, you have to do sports alone and ideally outdoors. The new rules are initially set for an indefinite period, but will certainly be tightened if the number of cases does not drop massively soon.

Many fitness studios are at least as accommodating and grant their non-exercising members a fitness break, which is later added to the fitness subscription. Nobody has to pay for unused services and can still use the offers in the studio later.

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Not a job, but a personal loan

Not a job, but a personal loan

The current times are difficult and not a few people are becoming unemployed. At the same time, many of them have a personal loan to run and are now wondering how they can continue to service it. There are the following options.

High credit and suddenly lost your job?

Even if it is not a real estate loan that creates debts, a personal loan of CHF 30,000 can also be a problem if suddenly unemployment occurs and the installments can no longer be paid.

Now it is important to act quickly, because talking to the bank or the lender is always the first step in solving the problem. Some banks offer a deferred payment and suspend the installments. Then only the interest has to be paid, the repayment portion can sometimes even be suspended for several months.

A new payment plan is usually negotiated for the time after the deferred payment, because now the term of the loan is extended. This, in turn, is associated with higher costs in terms of interest, which the borrower makes as minus by the deferment.

Also important: if you are already in arrears with your installment payments, you will receive a specific code from the Central Office for Credit Information (ZEK). All borrowers are listed here anyway, so that information about the creditworthiness of the applicant can be obtained when applying for a loan again or for other reasons.

If a lender reports a so-called slow payment, this is noted and the person concerned receives the code in his profile. The code remains even when the loan is fully paid off and is an important reference for other lenders. The creditworthiness is permanently deteriorated, it becomes much more difficult to get a personal loan or a lease.

Hence the tip: It is essential to ensure that there is no slow payment in the first place! Borrowers should definitely seek a conversation with the bank in good time and ask for possible solutions.

Replace credit as an opportunity?

Theoretically, there is the possibility that the current loan will be replaced by a cheaper loan if this is significantly cheaper or if the installments can be adjusted downwards according to your own financial possibilities. This is really only possible in theory, because if you are unemployed, you will not get another personal loan.

When taking out a loan, it should therefore always be assumed that only around 70 percent of the income is available due to sudden unemployment. The installments should then still be payable! It is therefore worthwhile as a borrower to insure yourself in the event of unemployment, which is possible through residual debt insurance.

However, not all banks and financiers offer this type of protection. Other providers only insure certain risks such as incapacity for work due to illness or due to an accident. Unemployment is often not insured here. Tip: It is essential to read the details in the small print, the exclusions from residual debt insurance are listed here.

As long as there is no unemployment and the financial means are available, more than the actually agreed rate can be paid back. This allows the borrower to get a head start that allows them to skip an installment payment.

It is important, however, that there is no delay in relation to the actual underlying payment plan. Additional payments even lower the interest costs because the loan can be paid off more quickly and interest is usually only calculated on the basis of the outstanding amount.

Conclusion: If you are unemployed, quickly look for personal loan solutions

In the event of sudden unemployment, the borrower should quickly look for possible solutions if a personal loan is running. You just did not get into arrears, this is a corresponding note at the ZEK, whereby the entered code remains even after the repayment and permanently deteriorates the creditworthiness of the person concerned.

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Home office poses new threats to SMEs

Home office poses new threats to SMEs

Traditional working models were valid until Corona came. Now other solutions are being looked for in order to work more flexibly and independently. But at the same time new dangers for companies and their employees develop.

Higher risk to devices

The home office has its advantages and offers working with more personal responsibility and significantly more flexibility. At the same time, insurance companies are critical of this trend, as they assume that the devices used in the home office are exposed to significantly greater dangers.

As early as the spring of 2020, around half of all employed people in Switzerland were working from home, some of them permanently, others were limited to hours or days a week. The reason was the adopted corona protective measures, which the companies had to bow to and which meant that new working models had to be used. Digitization and workplace models, which are now more diverse than ever before, experienced a significant boost. Quite a few employees appreciated this type of work, at the same time many companies can come to terms with it. It can therefore be expected that the home office will also be used much more heavily after Corona than before.

In surveys, around 41 percent of those questioned even stated that they were significantly more productive at home, and around 34 percent wanted to work at home even after Corona. The environment is quieter here, there are fewer distractions from colleagues and everyday life can be better integrated into professional life. According to the insurers, all this means that the devices provided by SMEs in the home office are significantly more at risk than in the regular office. This is especially true for employees who work in the home office, but use a locked office space there, but are surrounded by family and pets.

Great need for security

By switching to the home office, companies quickly had to ensure that technical gaps were closed and that standard digital tools were used. In addition, employees had to be given access to the company's devices and technologies from home, which meant an additional intrusion into corporate security. Private devices were connected and used, which served neither the current security regulations nor the effectiveness. Not everything was and is compatible, so that many employees in the home office face new challenges every day.

The need for security has grown significantly in companies, especially since more and more phishing attacks were detected on the companies during the first lockdown. Fraudsters tried directly to take advantage of the circumstances and gain access to the computers via fake emails. However, it is not the devices that are the biggest problem, but rather the people, because they are still too lax about safety regulations.

If you don't handle your mail carefully, you can open the door to the company for fraudsters. Many companies now have security checklists for their employees so that they can orientate themselves on them when it comes to IT security. Very important: Family members should not have access to the computer that belongs to the company and on which the employee works. With every additional person as a user, the security risk would increase.

Conclusion: Home office is practical, but risky

Both companies and employees benefit from the home office and its possibilities for concentrated, quiet work. Nevertheless, the security risk is significantly greater here, especially since many users at home are less strict with the company's security guidelines.

Potential attackers can gain access to the network more easily because the devices at home have to connect to the devices in the company, insecure passwords are used or the e-mails of the supposed colleagues (in truth the fraudsters) are not handled carefully enough becomes. The shared use for private and professional purposes also makes the computer more vulnerable to attack. For these reasons, IT insurance coverage must be clarified separately for devices that are used in the home office.

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Swiss: New services in travel insurance

Swiss: New services in travel insurance

In view of the ongoing Corona situation, the airline Swiss has something new in store: It has added additional services to its travel insurance. These relate to Covid-19.

New offers from Swiss

As before, the travel insurance packages issued by the insurer AIG apply to the Swiss airline. They include travel cancellation and interruption insurance. Now additional services have been added that can be booked by the insured. The insurer's offers apply to all passengers who fly with Swiss or who travel with Australian Airlines or with Lufthansa as the parent company. 

The option for travel insurance is called? Travel Care? and is aimed at passengers who can fly but then have to be in quarantine because they have been found to be infected with the corona virus. The insurance then not only covers the medical costs for the treatment of the disease, but also bears the costs for any return transport of the passenger to Switzerland.

The travel insurance option can be booked by all passengers who are resident in Switzerland, Austria or Germany. The advantage for Swiss customers is that the insurance gives them greater planning security. Together with Lufthansa, Swiss tries to take away the guests' fear of traveling.

Travel flexibly without additional costs

The airline is offering passengers more flexibility with the new travel insurance policy, especially as there are no rebooking fees. To this end, all tariffs and the entire tariff structure will be converted by the end of 2020. Since the end of August, all tariffs with Swiss can be rebooked without additional fees, although this is also possible several times. A one-time rebooking was even possible in spring directly after the outbreak of the corona pandemic, but this could not be done multiple times.

Swiss in crisis

The background to the frequent considerations about how passengers can be accommodated is that Swiss has plunged into a serious crisis. Only a few customers have booked trips in 2020, after all, travel to almost all parts of the world had to be stopped or was and is associated with great difficulties. Sometimes only five percent of all aircraft were still on the move, the rest of the fleet had to stay on the ground.

The costs for the aircraft continued, however, the airline's operating loss is now around CHF 414.7 million. Only within the first nine months of the year! Since another quarter will follow, significantly higher losses must be expected, because an end to the current situation is currently not in sight.

In the summer months, Swiss tried to rebuild some of its offerings, and in some cases it succeeded better than expected. But since the middle of August, the travel restrictions have increased again and made any progress made by the airline and all other companies and tourism companies disappear again. In the meantime, Swiss has announced that there will be an austerity program. Among other things, the following measures are planned:

    • early retirement of employees
    • Hiring freeze
    • Part-time models
    • partial wage waiver by employees

In the next two years, Swiss would like to cut up to 1,000 jobs, although no layoffs have been discussed so far. However, the above-mentioned measures should nevertheless allow a gradual reduction in staff.

The airline's success will depend on how the health situation in Switzerland and around the world develops and how politicians react to this and what measures are taken to restrict corporate activities.

Conclusion: Swiss offers a new component in travel insurance

The airline Swiss offers an additional Covid service through its in-house insurer AIG. This involves financial support for passengers who have to be quarantined at their destination due to an infection with the virus. In addition, the return trip of the person concerned is financially secured through the insurance. Furthermore, multiple rebookings are currently possible, so that travelers do not have to accept any financial losses if they cannot fly.

 

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