Maybe check what the repurchase value in two years will be. Sometimes the first ten years are the hardest to get out.
There is also the possibility to keep paying it. There are certain circumstances in life, where this insurance is not completely useless. If you have health issues and you expect you have to quit working within the next ten years, for example.
If you stop paying you usually lose the insurances coming with it as well. You need to read the General terms and conditions. If the insurance is discontinued, you can as well cut your losses and go to Viac with the money.
thanks for your reply, I made a comparison with what I paid / will pay against the purchase value for every year until my pension and the discrepancy is getting bigger by the year.
Also, I am healthy in my early 30s and don’t see the point of having a life insurance, and also read that even if I were to have one, it’d be better to have it separated from 3a.
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I belive you should cancel it ASAP and transfer the remaining to an online 3a (like VIAC, FinPension …).
Even if you lose 40% and they will promote the fact you’ll earn some money after x years, it won’t be as good as if you invested on ETF with low fees.
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From what I have seen and experienced myself, “take the loss and move on” is the way to go.
These products should be banned, but it seems the situation is beneficial for some, maybe they have friends in the right places.
Just for the heads up: You are not alone. 9 Years here.
What for me is a bit the question is where to find a replacement (separate) Erwerbsunfähigkeits/Disability insurance, not linked to a life insurance (I have no need for that).
Not playing devil’s advocate, I’ve been burnt by this too and lost 1 year’s contributions getting out, but I still believe they are better than nothing for those who don’t want to think much about it or optimise it. That’s most people. Hell in fact most people don’t even go with any invested 3A, they just take their bank’s 3A with 1% interest, claim the tax benefits and ride happily into the sunset.
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This should be offered by various insurance companies. You just have to make sure you get exactly what you want (pure risk). VIAC Life may be a good option (you can choose to insure risk of disability instead of risk of death) but it’s limited to a lump-sum payment of up to CHF 300k. Zurich offers an online calculator where the payout is an annuity until retirement age: Disability Insurance - Calculate online now | Zurich Switzerland. Mobiliar offers such an insurance as well and probably various other insurance companies.
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I think a simple 3a bank account with interests is better than these obscure products. In my case it would have been drastically better.
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Thanks Jay! For obvious reason, it is not a question I want to ask my current/previous insurance broker…
There are many reports (some here) of people who received less money (surrender value) than the sum they paid in after years of contributions.
Insurance aside - which many don’t need - that literally is worse than nothing.
Many would be better off by doing nothing and letting the money accumulate even on their salary account at 0% - than paying into a product that will have a negative overall return for many years.
Myself included, I paid 13766 in and got 8150 out. Good thing is the Quality Fund at Finpension has already made up about 10% of my loss to date 
What I meant, and it’s not to be confused for being a recommendation for these terrible products, is that if the flipside is doing nothing with this money, and one keeps with it until they’re 65, and claims the tax credits then they will probably come out better of than not doing anything at all.
Don’t get me wrong, I tell anyone who’ll listen to avoid 3A life insurance like the plague, but need to be balanced about it.
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Hi, I moved to Switzerland less than a year ago, and very recently (about a month ago) I had a meeting with a financial advisor to do my taxes, he then explained to me also how the pillar works and he convinced me in choosing Swiss Life Dynamic Elements Duo as 3rd pillar.
Unfortunately I did not do my research properly and I just trusted him, but now reading a bit online I’m thinking that I made a mistake.
I am a 27 years old living with my girlfriend, and the the premium is 588CHF per month.
No payments have been collected yet.
What do you advise to do? If it was a mistake, how easy is it to close the swisslife 3a pillar account and choose a different one?
Call them and close it. There is a surrender value (of now 0) francs. Shouldn’t be a problem. If it is, just don’t pay it (suspend the contract). You’ll lose the insurance, but who cares.
Go for a 3a solution from finpension or viac, as discussed a lot here.
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You should be able to close it (transfer it elsewhere). Your financial “advisor” will likely try to stall, so be prepared to be persistent and try to move fast.
(Note: your “advisor” probably earns thousands in fees when you sign up, and likely won’t receive much if you don’t keep paying for a few years, so your interests are very much not aligned)
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Thank you everyone, i just sent an email to swiss life, my contract started on the 1st of March so technically I’m within the 30days in which I can cancel easily.
Let’s see…
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Yeah just kill it before it gives birth. If you haven’t paid anything you haven’t lost anything. The advisor (who gets a payment of thousands the moment your pen lifts from the contract) will probably need to reimburse SwissLife.
I’m kind of curious how they’re selling this, what his proposition was.
I mean saving and investing something for the future and saving tax - surely that can’t be everything to make you sign a contract to pay them hundreds of hard-earned Francs every month, can it?
They‘ve got to tell people what they’re getting out of such plan, don’t they?
I can’t give you exact info on this since I can’t really remember properly, I was shown basically a comparison between 3/4 companies, and swiss life definitely came on top in regards to the befits.
To be honest this is totally on me since I did not do any research on the pillars and I thought it was normal to have insurance with it, also regarding the cost my understanding was that it was for the big part invested and didn’t think it was too high of a premium. Also he was clear about the fact that they don’t get anything from companies so that he could stay “unbiased”.
Well, I learned my lesson I guess
My own experience being signed up with SwissLife (could have been any of the other insurances out there) was more of a long game:
I used to get phonecalls all the time but they were from kids - a lot of them from DeVere - literally screaming down the phone about how I “can save 65000 CHF in taxes by the time I retire”.
I ignored them until a grown man was on the other side of the line and calmly asked me if I want to learn about the Swiss pension system - no strings attached or obligations of any kind. We booked a call, he explained everything perfectly well, then this lead to another call where he offered to talk to me about long-term investing. Compound interest, broadly diversified index funds, keeping costs down (LOL in hindsight), all perfectly explained, heard it once learnt it once.
Then he “offered” that I walk him through my finances, plans for the future etc etc so he can “offer” some advice etc and then I had a contract in my hands, signed happily and rode into the sunset 
It was a long game and masterfully done, over a month, 4 phonecalls, a lot of back and forth, chatty, personable guy.
You need to understand, coming from Greece I didn’t expect there’d be such bad deals in Switzerland. I mean this is Switzerland right, people are straight shooting here, what could be safer than investing your pension with a Swiss insurance agency, they’re the best in the world, right?
I did query why the contract said “Life Insurance” when all I’d been talking with the guy about was having an invested pension, he said “oh that’s no big deal, it’s only going to eat about 25% of your money per year”. Nah, he didn’t say that, he said “oh that’s no big deal, it’s only 35CHF/month and your family and your income are protected if touch wood you get hit by a falling piano on the way to Coop”. That 35CHF/month was nowhere to be seen in writing though.
Uh no, the guy who called me said they are independent and offered contracts with SwissLife and AXA. Another guy (an accountant I talked to for tax returns) said the same and then offered me a 3A with Zurich. They are not saying the whole truth until you ask: they will say upfront they don’t WORK for the insurance companies and that’s true - that’s the hook to pre-empt being ask if they get a benefit from it. But they do get paid from them for signing people up - I asked my guy point blank and he said he does.
Saying anything else would be a criminal offence. And frankly it makes sense, one would be naive to think all these phonecalls etc come for free, though I remember a member here saying they got a call from a person who said they are “a agent of the Gemeinde helping newcomers”, this sounds extremely fishy and basically illegal.
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