Moving: what has to be reported

Before you leave

• ✓Health insurance: the premium depends on the region, not the municipality. Moving into a different region opens a right to cancel with effect from the end of the preceding month. Check the price at the new address before deciding.
• ✓Household insurance: report the new address BEFORE moving day. Cover follows the home, and the hours when your furniture is in a van are not the same thing as an insured home.
• ✓Personal liability: it follows you, but the address must be current for the post to arrive — and many leases require a certificate on moving in.

What is lost if you forget

The cantonal premium subsidy does not follow you. It is cantonal, calculated on cantonal scales, and a change of canton means applying again to the new office, under its own deadlines. It is the costliest thing forgotten in a move, and it cannot always be recovered retroactively.

The household sum insured often becomes wrong. A bigger home fills up; the sum calculated for the old one no longer covers the new one, and the proportional rule then cuts every payout. Redoing the inventory while packing is the only moment anyone actually does it.

After you arrive

• ✓Register with the residents’ office within the municipal deadline. That is what triggers everything else.
• ✓If you change canton, apply for the subsidy in the new canton even if you did not qualify in the old one: the scales differ.
• ✓Check that your insurance model exists at the new address. An HMO model depends on a centre: outside the cities there is not always one within reasonable distance.
• ✓Update the address on your car policy: the premium depends on the canton of registration, and plates change when the canton does.