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The health questionnaire

It is the most underrated document in Swiss insurance. You read it once, sign it in five minutes, and it decides what will be paid ten years later.

Where it exists, and where it does not

In basic insurance there is no questionnaire: the duty to accept forbids an insurer from refusing or asking health questions. You can switch every year without declaring anything.

In supplementary insurance everything changes. The insurer may ask, exclude a condition, load the premium or refuse. This document decides, and it is filled in once for the whole life of the contract.

What to declare, and how

  • What you know, and what you ought reasonably to know. Ongoing treatment, a recent consultation, a scheduled examination: that gets declared.
  • In writing, on the form. Information given verbally to an adviser does not carry the same weight if it is not written down.
  • Without deciding in their place. It is not for you to judge whether a history is relevant: you mention it, and the insurer draws the conclusions.
  • Keep a copy of the completed questionnaire. It is the only proof of what you declared, and on the day it is needed it is too late to reconstruct it.

What happens if something is left out

If the insurer discovers that a material fact was not declared although you knew it or should have known it, it may terminate the contract within a short period from that discovery, and refuse the benefits connected to that fact — including for a loss that has already occurred.

The consequence is therefore not only losing future cover: it is losing the cover you believed you had. That is why a doubt is always resolved by declaring, never by staying silent.

This risk concerns supplementary insurance only. Your basic cover stays yours whatever happens.

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