Your first Swiss insurance review — 45-minute walkthrough.

Your first review with us is 45 minutes. It’s free. It’s in English. It happens by video call by default. You’ll talk to Robert, Nicole, or me — whichever fits the topic. What follows is exactly what happens in the call: what we’ll ask you to have ready, what we’ll cover, what we’ll recommend, and what we won’t do. If you’ve never had an independent Swiss insurance review before, this is the briefing.

Before the call — what to gather.

About ten minutes of admin before the meeting. Missing items don’t disqualify the review — they just become things we ask you to send afterwards so the written summary can be specific.

If you don’t have all of this, we can still do the review. The above just makes the 45 minutes denser.

The first 5 minutes — situation mapping.

The session opens with you talking. We ask: where are you in your time in Switzerland (just arrived, settled, planning to leave)? Household composition (single, couple, kids, pregnant, planning to be)? Employment status (employed, self-employed, between jobs, executive package)? Any flagged medical history — briefly, only what’s relevant to the underwriting questionnaire question? Any specific question that triggered this review?

We don’t try to sell you anything in this opening. We’re listening for the architecture of your life, because that is what decides whether the right insurance answer is “stay,” “switch,” or “restructure.” The wrong opening question is “which insurer do you have?” — that is a product question, and the architecture comes first.

Five minutes of listening saves twenty minutes of wrong calculations. We’ve found this consistently.

The middle 30 minutes — contract reading and the lever calculations.

The substantive work. This is where most of the value lives. The four work areas, screen-shared so the reader follows along:

One. We read the contracts you bring. On screen-share, line by line where it matters. We mark the clauses worth reading — supplementary outpatient exclusions, age-curve language, hospital-room definitions, claim-handling clauses, cancellation terms, the small footnotes that decide whether a future claim is paid cleanly or fought. Many readers see their own contract for the first time during this section, which is itself the comment we hear most often.

Two. We run the lever calculations. Franchise scenarios at your age and canton — the typical adult inflection points are 300, 1,500, and 2,500. Model discount math (Standardmodell versus Hausarzt versus HMO versus Telmed at your insurer × canton). Family Franchise cap (Familienpauschalfranchise, Article 64 §4 KVG) for households with two or more children. Tax-deduction math on a 3a contribution at your marginal rate and canton. The maths is what moves your bill; the marketing is what does not.

Three. We map gaps and overlaps against your life. UVG status (BU + NBU versus BU only), and the 31-day Nachdeckung rule if you’re between jobs or planning a gap. Supplementary outpatient versus basic-only — does the supplementary you’re paying for actually pay back at the rate you use it. Hospital supplementary — does it match your canton’s facility list and your preferences on private versus semi-private. Pension architecture — pillar 2 status, 3a regime (kleine cap versus grosse cap for self-employed), staggered withdrawal account count.

Four. We name where the four traps apply. The age-curve trap on supplementary, the 3-month registration deadline for new arrivals, the gap between coverage that pays and coverage that fights, and where your specific household maps to the matching-coverage rule. The four traps are not generic; they apply to your file specifically.

Across these four work areas we point at things on screen. The reader has the right to interrupt with questions throughout — which is why the calendar is reserved for one client at a time, not stacked back-to-back.

The last 10 minutes — recommendations.

What you walk away with. Three answers — sometimes one, sometimes a sequenced combination:

• Stay. The current architecture fits; no action needed beyond a check-in next year. We say this often — the supplementary policy you have, the Franchise you’ve picked, the model you’re on are sometimes already right, and the value of the consultation is the confirmation. Stay is unprofitable for us under the standard commission model, which is exactly why it’s information you can trust.
• Switch. A specific switch makes sense — basic insurer, supplementary insurer, model, Franchise, or pension structure. We name what to do, by when (with the November 30 cancellation deadline mapped where applicable), and the exact mechanics — registered-mail sequence, application timing, whether to sequence basic and supplementary together or apart.
• Restructure. The architecture is wrong even if individual products aren’t. Multiple changes: open additional 3a accounts at different providers, add UVG-Zusatz, reconsider canton timing, reschedule a supplementary application around a planned medical event. We map this as a sequenced plan with priorities and dates.

If the answer is partially “we’d want to look at one more piece before recommending” — say, a copy of a specific exclusion clause we couldn’t read on screen — we say that openly. Saying “we don’t know yet” is a feature of an honest review, not a failure of one.

After the call — written summary, no pressure.

The follow-up is short and uniform across every consultation:

• Within three working days, a written summary of recommendations lands in your inbox. Sequenced, dated, with deadlines marked.
• No contracts get issued in the first call. You take the recommendations away to consider. We follow up only if you ask us to.
• If you decide to act, we handle paperwork — applications to new insurers, cancellations of old contracts, the registered-mail sequence for cancellation-deadline filings, 3a account setup at a banking-3a foundation if that’s part of the recommendation. The mechanics of a switch are about an hour of admin; we do that hour for you.
• If you decide not to act, the recommendations stay in your inbox. We do not follow up with sales pressure. The next contact is at your initiative.

We don’t sell in the first call. The reader who books a review is paying us for a piece of careful thinking, not for a contract.

What we don’t do.

The boundaries. The honesty section that makes the rest of the post hold together.

• We don’t issue contracts in the first call. No exceptions. The pressure to sign now is a sales tactic; we don’t use it. If a recommendation is time-sensitive (a November 30 cancellation deadline approaching, a pre-pregnancy supplementary window closing), we say that — and the decision still sits with you, after the meeting, in writing.
• We don’t make blanket recommendations. “VIAC is the best 3a app” is not a recommendation we ever make. The architecture is what matters; once that is right, the provider choice is small. Detailed in our VIAC vs frankly vs finpension piece.
• We don’t recommend things we haven’t read. If a contract clause is ambiguous, we say so; we don’t fill in the gap with optimistic interpretation. Optimistic interpretation is how a future claim gets fought.
• We don’t sell life insurance products that don’t fit the household. Insurance 3a wrapped with a disability premium waiver makes sense for some households; we say so when it does, and we stay quiet when it doesn’t.
• We don’t give legal advice. Cross-border tax interaction (US, UK, Germany), inheritance complexity, divorce financial settlements — we route to specialists. Our work stops where regulated legal or tax advisory begins.
• We don’t operate in every language. English primarily; German across the team; Czech with Robert; French with Nicole. If your preferred language is Italian, we are not the right firm — and saying so up front is more useful than trying.

When this is genuinely worth booking.

Three signals the consultation is the right next step:

• You have a specific Swiss insurance question — newcomer registration, supplementary review, 3a architecture, a contract you can’t read, a job change, a baby on the way, a planned move out of Switzerland — and you’ve already read the relevant post on this site
• You want a second opinion on advice you’ve received from a tied agent, a comparison portal, or your existing insurer’s “review” call
• You’re at a life-event trigger and want the architecture review before you act, not after

If your only question is which 3a app to choose and you’ve already read the VIAC vs frankly vs finpension piece, you might not need us. We’ll happily walk it with you anyway, but the architecture is what matters and the architecture is in that post.

When you should not book us.

Counter-intuitive section, on-brand. Restraint is the advisor difference.

• You’re a long-term Swiss resident with one stable insurer relationship, no supplementary, no flagged condition, under 40. Your basic insurance review is mostly the Franchise question; priminfo.ch does it in twenty minutes. Save us both the call.
• You want a comparison portal. Comparis is fine for headline price comparison. We don’t compete on basic-insurance price-shopping; we compete on coverage architecture, and the two are different jobs.
• You want German-language advice with a tied agent. Your insurer’s local agent will work for you better than we will — they speak the local market in the local language and know the in-house product catalogue better than any independent advisor can.
• You want someone to “just sign the form.” We don’t issue contracts in the first call by policy. If you’ve already decided what you want and just need the paperwork, your insurer’s portal is faster than a 45-minute consultation with us.

Restraint is the advisor difference. We say “you don’t need us” when that’s the honest answer.

The honest answer.

We read the Swiss insurance contracts so you don’t have to. The first review is forty-five minutes, free, in English, by video call. You walk away with a written summary inside three working days, a sequenced plan if action is needed, and no pressure. We say “stay” more often than “switch.” We don’t issue contracts in the first call. We don’t make blanket recommendations. We don’t follow up with sales pressure if you decide not to act.

If this is the briefing you needed, the booking link is below. If it isn’t — if the right move for you is to read another post first, ask priminfo.ch, or talk to your insurer’s tied agent — that is the honest recommendation, and we have already given it.