Pillar 3A insurance - how to cancel without losing everything

Banks, Insurances & Third Pillar
#34

If you want the Aufstellung, a registered letter should do the job.

The law says that the insurer must give you all the information necessary so that an expert may check their calculation. I assume that the Aufstellung is necessary for that. FINMA has to check the calculation for you free of charge, if you want it.

So I would write your request to the management of the agency you are dealing with. Mention that you requested the Wert- bzw. Kostenaufstellung that the agent did not want to provide. (Also add insurance number and stuff.)

Ask them to take note, that you will have to, according to Art. 92 al. 1 and 2 VVG, ask FINMA for their help with the calculations should you not receive the requested statement until June 30th, 2018.

At the end, express your hope that burdening a state agency can be avoided.

Here is the relevant legal framework (no english version available):

SR 221.229.1 Bundesgesetz über den Versicherungsvertrag

Art. 92

c. Obliegenheiten des Versicherers; Nachprüfung durch die FINMA; Fälligkeit der Rückkaufsforderung1

1 Der Versicherer ist verpflichtet, auf Anfrage des Anspruchsberechtigten binnen vier Wochen den Umwandlungswert oder den Rückkaufswert der Versicherung zu berechnen und dem Anspruchsberechtigten mitzuteilen. Der Versicherer muss, wenn der Anspruchsberechtigte es verlangt, überdies diejenigen Angaben machen, die zur Ermittlung des Umwandlungswertes oder des Rückkaufswertes für Sachverständige erforderlich sind.

2 Die FINMA hat auf Ersuchen des Anspruchsberechtigten die vom Versicherer festgestellten Werte unentgeltlich auf ihre Richtigkeit hin zu prüfen.

3 Stellt der Anspruchsberechtigte das Rückkaufsbegehren, so wird die Rückkaufsforderung nach drei Monaten, vom Eintreffen des Begehrens an gerechnet, fällig.

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#35

It just occurs to me that it was Axa selling an overpriced house insurance to my dad. Upon his death (and the transfer of ownership), I used the extraordinary right of termination that the law provides. Axa was trying a lot to keep the insurance going (in vain). Bad memories.

Be firm.

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#36

Thanks @cray for the advice. Yes, I am sticking to my position and will not let up.

Will update this thread as soon as I have any further news.

#37

Same happened with me…
You can read and find my story here:

After a long reclaim process I could finally end my contract with zero loss. I have fingers crossed for you :crossed_fingers:t3:

Have a nice weekend :slight_smile:

#38

Hi there!

I’m in the process of cancelling my insurance (I also posted on that thread).

Could you please share any tips? How have you avoided any losses?

Thanks!

#39

Hi,
I claimed the consulting process (it was on english), and mentioned many times, that I didn’t wanted a life insurance, just only a 3rd pillar account, but I ended up in one.
Read the other topic and my posts, I hope you can also come out of this contract.
Fingers crossed!

Best,
Mr.P

1 Like
How to exit my AXA Pillar 3A insurance policy smoothly?
#40

Hi Mr Paprika

Currently going through the same nightmare with AXA after 2.5 years of wasted money. Eager to learn from your experience: what do you mean with “claimed the consulting process?”
Did you have any other insurances with AXA that you could cancel as negotiation leverage?

Cheers!

#41

Hi FIREPhoenix,

I tried simply to describe, the consultation with the agent has beed done in English. My argumentation was simple: I told them, I didn’t understood all part of the consultation because of the lack of my English knowledge.

On the other hand I mentioned at least 3 times, that “I strictly don’t want to have a life insurance”.

Of course every case is individual, and there was a lot of humanity in my case. At the end was important, the agent gave the approval to AXA to annul the whole contract with cashing out the whole original paid-in money value.

I hope you can move lucky forward too!!! Fingers crossed :crossed_fingers:

Cheers,
Mr.P

#42

Thanks for such a quick answer. My case is similar except it was done in French, which I don’t really speak well :confused:

#43

Hi FirePhoenix, I suffered the same as you in French in 2016. Have you signed in Geneva office? maybe we shall make an effort together to quit without loss.

#44

@Sirob Hi Sirob, can you please share how it ended? Thanks

#45

Hi @neutralname my case is still ongoing. I tried to cancel my 3A AXA policy but was told that the loss would be approx. 9000 CHF. I reduced the premium to CHF 100 per month and am now trying to reduce it even further to CHF 60.
The next consultation takes place in early Dec. I’ll update this forum when I learn the next steps. All I can say is that try to get out of your policy without losing money. I know that is hard, but its better to minimise your losses while exiting.

#46

Thanks Sirob, I thought everybody in the forum told you to close your account with AXA ASAP, and I am surprised to see that you haven’t done so. I am as lost as you haha

#47

@Sirob
Hi Sirob, could you please reply my last question? I thought everybody in the forum told you to close your account with AXA ASAP, why do you still want to keep it? I may be in similar situation.

#48

Sorry for the delay in responding.
Yes, many on the forum have advised me to cancel outright. By doing that, I incur a loss of approx. CHF 9,000
I am trying to get the annual premium reduced to CHF 600 and also trying to investigate of to utilise the eventual maturity value of the policy, approx. CHF 32,000 now and if reduced, around CHF 20,000 could be used against puchase of a house/apartment.
I have a meeting with Axa on 06 Dec and will update the forum when I come to know of the exact next options presented.

#49

Coming to this late, and kicking myself for my idiocy in signing up to a similar kind of scam! My situation is this - I have a 3A tied to my mortgage, having bought an flat here in Vaud in 2019. I was ‘sold’ the 3A by my counsellor at BCV bank, acting in the guise of being my ‘financial adviser’. I was so naive that it didn’t occur to me that he was doing a fantastic saleman’s job on me and earning a fat commission in the process. I was in a stressful, separate legal dispute at the time, we had a newborn baby, work problems. No excuses though, I didn’t read the contract in enough depth.

Anyway, my policy is with Retraites Populaires (Lausanne company) and seems especially bad. 26-year contract. Prime of CHF 6,826 each year (I have paid x2 to date), of which only CHF 4,762.60 is saved each year. Around 2K per year goes on the ‘prime risque and frais’ (CHF 2,063.40 in 2019!), which is a total black box in terms of how it is distributed - the policy has life insurance payout of 500K, and also an incapacity benefit element.

Wondering now what my exit options are, and whether BCV bank will even make it possible for me to quit it?

1.‘Valeur de rachat’ (‘surrender value’) as of November was CHF 7,498.15. I suppose I’d get even less back if I went down this route and requested it? And according to the contract, I can only do this if I fulfil certain conditions - e.g. leave Switz, finance property purchase as a principal residence, etc.

  1. Transfer the policy. I’ve seen that mooted on here but have no idea whether that’s possible in my case.

  2. Just stop paying the primes. “There is a clause in the contract that states 'the capital saved financed by means of periodic prime is able to be transformed into an insurance free from the payment of future primes, with reduction of the insured saving benefit, within the limits fixed by the applicable general conditions of the insurance.” Does this mean that the money I’ve paid in will simply sit there accruing their poor interest rate? Presumably the sum will diminish, provided this is possible, as doubtless, Retraites Populaires will skim some annual fees off the top of it.

Just don’t know how to proceed at the moment. My French is so so, but I still find the contractual bases ill written and open to interpretation. I am trying to get some independent financial advice but would be grateful for any advice from people here on how to move forward.

Feel like a total idiot and that I’ve let my young family down badly. Also feel that the policy was missold, but precious little I can do about that. Yours despairingly.

#50

My wife and I had a 3A + Life Insurance with PostFinance + AXA and we simply sent a letter saying something like “please cancel this thing right away” and they just did. Since we were only 1 year on this scam, our “Surrender value” was zero, so we basically lost all we had there (i.e. 1750 x2 = CHF 3500).
Your case might be more complicated since it’s linked to your Mortgage but I still believe there’s a proper way out rather than simply stop paying the primes. I would imagine it’s possible to cancel and link your mortgage to a new 3a like VIAC, Finpension or even a “normal” 3a (without insurance) from your bank.

#51

If you are going for indirect 3a amortisation, there are only 2 ways to do it:

  • 3a from the bank with the mortgage
  • 3a life insurance
#52

You need to check with BCV. If the mortgage is linked to the 3A, it going to be complicated to stop it

#53

Hello,

After having browsed through a lot of topics on the forum about 3A insurance (what anneries by the way, we should forbid this), let me describe my situation in order to have some additional opinions from our dear community of Mustachian:

I’m now nicely in my thirties, and it’s been 10 years since I took out a 3A insurance with SwissLife (even if at the beginning it was with another company, which was later bought by SwissLife), but “fortunately” for me, I only took out a monthly payment of 100CHF, as I was a student at that time and I’ve never changed since then.

After consulting my client area, I found out that I have a “total capital” (I don’t really understand this term) of CHF 8,570 on my 3A insurance.
(Even though I can also see that the fund linked to my insurance has a -great ?- evolution -> here :: what do you think? )

So, after a few calculations, I realised that I was a loser, and that it was much more profitable and above all flexible for me to transfer everything to a 3A account at a bank (for example at Viac).

So, I think I will take the steps to be able to close this account at SwissLife, and transfer the balance to a VIAC account, but I don’t really know how to proceed: do you have any advice?

  1. I saw that it would be important to request my “surrender value”, but is this really far from my capital value, which I mentioned above?

  2. I have also seen that in the forum there is talk of “Wert- bzw. Kostenaufstellung”, but I am not sure what this means in French or even in English: could someone help me?

  3. My contract has an annual “renewal” date every 1st of August, so do I have to wait until that date to close the account or can I do so at any time?

  4. Some people in the forum were talking about asking FINMA to monitor the development of the portfolio / 3a insurance, but I didn’t quite understand the procedure.

-> I’m sorry if these are silly and redundant questions, but to tell the truth I feel quite uncomfortable that I was fooled… but hey, I’ll learn from my mistakes.

In any case I thank you very much in advance for your answers / help / advice, and wish you a very beautiful and happy new year 2021.

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