Business insurance review: map the risks before comparing policies

1. Describe the business before choosing cover

Record the legal form, owners, employees, annual payroll, turnover, activities, customer types and countries served. Then list premises, equipment, stock, vehicles, data and suppliers that the business cannot operate without. A sole trader is treated differently from an owner of a limited company: the federal SME portal explains that owners of an SA or Sàrl are also employees for social-insurance purposes, while sole proprietors and partners are generally self-employed.

This first page prevents a common error: buying a standard package that does not reflect the actual activity. A Geneva consultancy and a food business may have similar turnover but very different professional-liability, stock, machinery and interruption exposures.

2. Separate compulsory employee protection from optional cover

Every employee in Switzerland must be insured by the employer against occupational accidents and occupational diseases. Employees working at least eight hours per week for the same employer must also be covered for non-occupational accidents. Confirm the correct insurer, insured payroll and which staff cross the eight-hour threshold; do not assume that adding accident cover to basic health insurance fulfils the employer’s LAA duty.

For occupational pensions, the 2026 federal SME guide confirms an entry threshold of CHF 22,680 a year for an employee with an indefinite contract or one lasting more than three months. Death and disability cover starts from age 17; retirement saving starts from age 25. A pension plan may insure more than the statutory minimum, so compare the definition of insured salary, employer contribution, risk benefits and waiting provisions rather than only the total premium.

3. Model sickness absence and key-person dependency

Swiss employment law requires continued salary payment during sickness, subject to the applicable rules. A collective daily sickness allowance can replace that obligation when the agreed benefits are at least equivalent. Review the waiting period, insured percentage, benefit duration, salary definition, pre-existing-condition provisions and who continues pension contributions. Also calculate what happens if the owner or a key employee cannot work for three, six or twelve months.

4. Test liability, property and interruption separately

Ask three separate questions: damage to whom, damage to which assets, and what stops the business earning? For a consultancy, a client’s financial loss from incorrect advice is different from a visitor’s injury or a broken computer. AXA’s professional-liability explanation identifies pure financial loss as a specific insured risk. Ask whether your precise services, subcontractors, countries and contractual commitments are included. Check exclusions, the deductible and whether defence costs reduce the available limit. A product label alone cannot answer those questions.

For property, document equipment, stock, leased items and locations, then confirm the valuation basis with the insurer. AXA describes its business-interruption benefits as following insured material damage: that trigger matters. Do not read this provider example as a promise from every policy. Ask whether supplier failure, inaccessible premises or an IT outage qualifies under your own wording. Request the waiting period, indemnity period, sublimits and treatment of emergency premises or other extra costs in writing. Estimate recovery time using replacement lead times and practical workarounds.

Illustration only: a workshop normally earns CHF 12,000 monthly and spends CHF 4,000 on variable costs, leaving CHF 8,000 before continuing fixed costs of CHF 6,000 and profit of CHF 2,000. During a complete shutdown, lost revenue is not automatically the insured loss: some variable costs may disappear while fixed bills continue. Use this arithmetic to discuss cash reserves and restoration time, not to predict a payout. The policy’s definitions, insured cause, actual loss, deductible and limits determine the claim. Ask the insurer to explain how it would assess this scenario.

5. Treat cyber insurance as one layer of resilience

List critical systems, administrators, cloud providers, personal data and maximum tolerable downtime. Test backups, use multi-factor authentication and define who can isolate systems, call the IT provider and communicate with customers. A cyber policy may add incident response, forensic work, recovery costs, liability or interruption cover, but conditions and exclusions vary. If a personal-data breach is likely to create a high risk for affected people, the Federal Data Protection Commissioner states that it must be reported without delay.

A practical annual review

Bring the payroll declaration, staff list, pension plan, leases, asset register, main customer contracts, turnover by activity and country, continuity plan and current policies. Record changes since the last review: new staff, products, premises, vehicles, exports, subcontractors or software. Then compare each policy against one question: which event, financial consequence and time period is it intended to protect? Review the site’s employee pension, accident and sickness, business liability, property/interruption and cyber pages, or book a first conversation to organise the information.

Official sources

• Federal Social Insurance Office — 2026 social-insurance guide for SMEs
• Federal SME Portal — social and business insurance
• Suva — compulsory accident insurance
• Federal Data Protection Commissioner — data-breach notification guide
• Federal Office for Cyber Security — cybersecurity awareness for SMEs

AXA — property cover and insured interruption triggers (provider explanation)

AXA — professional liability and pure financial loss (provider explanation)