Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Insurance

A condition of my lease was to get insurance for the flat. I tried to do this online before I came, emailed a bunch of people, and had no luck.

Found it much easier to just walk into the insurance place (Dina Försäkringar, on Lille Fiaskaregatan near Bytareg) after I arrived. They have the life-sized green horse in the window (out front on nice days).

Good news:

The woman who works there was very nice. she gave me a temporary personnummer so that the insurance could be active asap. (You need to bring your passport with you, and have an estimate of the value of what you're insuring).

It is cheap (insuring 400.000 SEK of our belongings cost only 1.175 SEK for one year).

Bad news:

It doesn't cover much. The Swedish insurance system has pretty low limits on the maximum value for things (i.e., about 8.000 SEK max for a bike... that doesn't come close for many of ours!), and things depreciate quickly. For example, clothing is insured for its full value when it is less than 1 year old, but only 25% of its original value 3 years later. It is not set up to cover replacement value, as in the US.

I think for big-ticket items like laptops, jewelry, and fancy bikes, it may be better to get a "personal articles policy" from a US company. These are good worldwide and cover replacement cost. (It is also possible to have a separate policy for some things with Swedish insurance, but not for bikes).

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