Swiss insurance policies come in different shapes and sizes; it gets hard to keep up with at times. One of the most misunderstood policies is legal insurance.
What exactly is legal insurance?
Legal insurance in Switzerland protects your financial security in the event of litigation. It goes without saying that the Swiss legal system is very expensive. Thanks to legal insurance, you can afford high retainer fees and hourly rates charged to you by lawyers.
Why do I need legal insurance in Switzerland?
This is a fundamental question that not enough Swiss residents ask themselves when compared to other insurance policies; legal insurance is among the least known contracts, but one of the most important. Imagine this scenario, your employer terminates your employment suddenly and gives very little clarification on why they made their decision. You decide to do what any other self-respecting person would do; you sue your employer for wrongful termination of the contract.
But here’s the catch, the whole process behind having your case heard in court is lengthy and barely affordable. First you need to get a lawyer to represent your interests in court, the average hourly cost of a lawyer in most major cities is around CHF500.Like that wasn’t bad enough, you need to pay your law firm an initial retainer of ten hours, which in this example is CHF5000.
You thought your spending was over, think again. You are also required to pay a retainer to cover the costs of the court case, this will add another CHF1000 for a simple case.
There are other expenses associated with your hypothetical case against your employer and the more your case progresses, the more expensive it becomes. Not everyone has thousands of CHF in the bank to defend themselves, meaning you may have to let your employer get away with this injustice because you cannot afford to fight the decision.
Legal Advice in Switzerland
Often all you need is legal advice from a registered professional, but even this doesn’t come cheap. Legal advice can help you avoid unnecessary court cases, but the truth is that legal advice is also expensive in Switzerland.
Legal advice is billed at the same hourly rate as that of having a lawyer represent you in court. If you are the defendant and a legal letter is required to be sent to your claimant the whole process of meeting the lawyer, exposing your case and having them write a letter quickly adds up to four hours of work and a total tab of CHF 2000. You would have paid a lot less if you had legal protection insurance in Switzerland.
So now that we’ve gone over the problems associated with legal procedures in Switzerland, it’s time to look into the solution. By solution, we mean how you as an everyday Swiss resident can access basic legal services without jeopardizing the financial security of your family.
Legal insurance in Switzerland costs roughly CHF300 for twelve months. Assuming you’re an average person and you need legal insurance once in six years, you would have spent CHF1800 on insurance coverage over thatsix year period. This is less than the CHF2000 that you would have been required to pay once for legal adviceif you had no legal insurance coverage.
When you consider the exorbitant retainer fees and average hourly charges levied on us, this is the only way for you to tilt the scale back in your favour. We suggest consulting the Expat Experts Guide to legal insurance in Switzerland or contacting their recommended insurance specialist, Charles, to subscribe to your legal insurance policy. Charles is directly available on +41 78 601 40 90.