Zurich Immo-Protect

Hello everyone,
Does anybody have a mortgage with UBS and a life insurance called Immo-Protect?
The sales person in UBS said that Zurich cannot offer directly this product, and it’s related to the mortgage only.

I’m trying to figure out if it makes sense.

Immo-Protect

Thanks

I don’t have a UBS mortgage or use Immo-protect. But I took a good look at it to see what it’s about. Basically it’s a bundled offer which combines term life insurance and disability insurance.

The first question to ask is whether you need life insurance. If you have a family and want to make sure the mortgage can be paid if you unexpectedly die, then it can make sense.

The second question to ask is whether you need disability insurance. If you work for a Swiss employer, you income is fairly well protected against disabilities caused by accidents. So additional insurance is only really worth considering if becoming disabled because of bad health is a concern, and only if your occupational pension fund does not have extra disability insurance which fully insures your income. You can find more info here:

If the answer to both of those questions is yes, the next step is to compare the cost of Zurich Immo-Protect with that of other term life and disability insurance offers.

If you only need term life insurance and not disability insurance, then getting Zurich Immo-Protect only makes sense if the premium is more or less what you would pay for just term life insurance. In that case, the bundled disability insurance could be seen as a bonus. You can compare Swiss term life insurance offers here:

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Zurich offers a life insurance with several bundles options like mortgage protection, unemployment,…
As Daniel mention the need is be studied case by case and the risk that you want to take.

Many thanks for checking!
I’m thinking mainly for the case of death.
In the meantime I’m waiting for a quote directly from Zurich.

In the fact-sheet of Immo-Protect I found a “small” note saying that the insurance doesn’t guarantee the sustainability of the mortgage, but it can sustain it.
I sort of get that, but if my wife needs to sell the house anyway, it’s only partially good.

Swiss affordability norms for mortgages are intense, with a high imputed interest rate being used to calculate future affordability. A life insurance which only covers part of the mortgage in the event of your death does not guarantee that your spouse/partner/children, etc. will meet affordability requirements and be able to keep the mortgage.

If you want to be sure that your home is protected financially, these are the best options:

  • For protection against death: Get term life insurance with a diminishing benefit (the insurance benefit shrinks each year to match the still-unpaid portion of the mortgage) that covers the full mortgage. Diminishing-benefit term life insurance is affordable, and ensuring the full unpaid mortgatge guarantees that your family will fully own their home if you die.
  • For protection against disability: In order to continue meeting affordability requirements, your post-disability income should be as high as your pre-disability income. Social disability insurance and your employer’s accident insurance covers a large part of your income if you become disabled through an accident. Basic, compulsory income protection for disabilities caused by illness is seriously lacking, but some pension funds have additional insurance which closes the gap. You can close gaps using private, voluntary disability insurance. It’s pretty expensive, so you will only want to use it to close gaps which are not covered by your accident insurance, pension fund, and social disability insurance.
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