Ok, I think that in this case life insurance money is tax free.
But I still donât understand how the transfer technically would work. How/why VIAC would accept suddenly an important sum of money? I probably would need sort of proof that this money is part of my accumulated 3a pillar over the past years!?
your existing provider will provide this you need to send a registered letter with your new p3a details to make the transfer.
In VIAC Portal you can generate a transfer order, then send everything to them (with life insurance resignation letter). They will ask for the transfer for you.
Big news for me : I cancelled this life contract !
I just received the confirmation from Zurich. Amount to be received on VIAC : CHF 22k
Amount paid for this **** : CHF 28â000
Effective lost : CHF 6â000 - risk premium of CHF 1â400 (~200 CHF per year) = CHF 4â600
Next step : invest in shares with VIAC !
Hey guys, I made the same mistake of starting a 3a life insurance and want to cancel it. In my case itâs from Helvetia.
Are there any gotchas that I might mess up when cancelling? Like some formulation I have to use?
please find my original posting of my 3a life insurance fail here: Bad investment choices: let others learn from your fails/ mistakes!
afaik there are no gotchas. get out, do mustachian stuff with it and become more happy than you are now 
congrats @Ardius !
I canât believe how many are falling into this trap? Is there a reason for that? I mean we are talking about people that know one or two things about finance and investing.
yes. Financial advisors benefit largely from those polices, hence they actively market them. It is very lucrative to sell them, since intransparency allows for relatively large provisions. It takes well-above-average knowledge and willingness to get behind these products. Since the vast majority of people does not have them, these products keep beeing quite successful.
Indeed, youâre way more likely to get an email/call selling you those than a cheap passive solution. And the names are reputable (big banks/insurance names), many people tend to think the advisor will have their best interests in mind (but theyâre salespersons, definitely not an unbiased party).
Well⊠One of the first advices one can read in the FI community is that you should be maxing out your 3a. And even if there is a cautionary âbut not from your insuranceâ, itâs likely to get overlooked. Add in the eager âadvisorsâ, and there you are.
Iâm not sure I understand your comment. For most people in Switzerland, known investing options are:
For the average+ investor, pre VIAC-like solutions, insurances 3A solutions looked like an attractive option. Even now, VIAC/Valuepension are pretty recent actors that some canât yet trust with long term retirement money (Iâm one of them, even wondering if, as things are, putting money in 3A is really interesting on a risk adjusted basis), which leaves the old same insurances and banks as considered options (Frankly. may change that with ZKB as a trusted partner).
I would also include stocks/equity and equity funds among them (âknownâ investment options).
Itâs just that they are frequently deemed as too risky and/or too expensive/requiring to much capital.
So this is stressing me more than it should⊠Is the cancellation really as easy as writing
Hereby I cancel my contract(s) XXX per the beginning of next year. Please send me a written confirmation that cancellation was successful.
and send this per certified letter? Or do I need to mention anything else?
I think for a 3a contract they will ask you for a new account within the 3a system to transfer the funds that you might have. So if you just send the old contract number and company address to your new account provider they will do it (the cancellation) for you. (at least that is how it works with viac if I remember correctly)
It should be enough, maybe with the 3A informations that Gesk mentions.
If it isnât enough, it will start the process and youâll be able to provide whatever they ask for after that. Unless youâre certain that the earlier next term to cancel it is the beginning of next year, Iâd change that formulation to mention the 31.12.2020 so as to make sure that it doesnât overlap with your 2021 available 3A contributions. If thatâs not an available term, theyâll mention it to you and youâll be able to double check it to see if theyâre right on it.
Thank you very much @Gesk and @Wolverine. I just wrote VIAC if they would handle that for me. Iâll report back once I hear from them.
Youâll be fine. I did just that and lost over 10k+ in the process. But I know I will make up the difference in a few years. Excel doesnât lie!
I just sent off my cancellation. Hooray! As promised: VIACâs response (paraphrased):
The transfer form from VIAC (can be found via Transfer -> move existing 3a) also cancels the previous policy. Typically, the previous insurance requests further (unnecessary) documents in order to delay/prevent cancellation.
According to their experience, it takes Helvetia about 5 weeks to complete the process.
Congrats!
I have a question: Iâm actually with Generalli, and it seems that I canât see what they are doing with my money. They only send me documents for tax, and the policy I have with themâŠ
Do you find it normal? Cause, I donât really know if it is, but I like to monitor from time to time, how my money is growingâŠ
I donât consider it right, but itâs kinda to be expected that they donât tell you too much after all I read about those contracts⊠Have you tried asking them how itâs coming along?