Keep three files separate
Beneficiary clause
Read its exact wording, successive beneficiaries, contractual ability to amend it and date of the latest version. An undocumented intention may not have the effect expected.
Event and benefit
Check who is insured, for what period, under which exclusions and in what benefit form. Policyholder, insured person, premium payer and beneficiary may differ.
Other survivor systems
Document state, occupational, accident and other contracts separately. Their beneficiary, entitlement and claim rules are not replaced by a private policy clause.
Prepare a request without prejudging entitlement
The insurer remains responsible for assessing evidence under the actual policy.
Identify all roles
Record policyholder, insured person, beneficiaries and payer and match names and capacities to current documents.
Collect binding versions
Keep the policy, endorsements, designations, conditions and confirmations; a marketing screenshot does not replace a contract document.
Ask each body for its evidence list
After a death, obtain each institution's own documents and secure channel rather than automatically sending the same file everywhere.
Keep dated evidence
Archive the policy, conditions, insurer's written response and federal source consulted so the version underlying a later decision remains traceable.
What this page does not decide
- It validates no beneficiary clause, order or entitlement of a named person.
- It calculates no benefit, inheritance share or tax outcome and is not legal advice.
- Statutory survivor benefits and private life insurance may follow different procedures.
Verified Swiss federal sources
FINMA and FSIO guidance is linked in verified English. Fedlex is intentionally linked to the official French Insurance Contract Act because no authoritative English legal text is asserted here. Official texts, the policy and competent decisions prevail.
- Fedlex — Loi fédérale sur le contrat d'assurance (official French text)French fallback · Official French consolidated text covering pre-contractual information, the contract, life-insurance beneficiaries and statutory rights or notices; no authoritative English text is asserted.↗
- OFAS — Survivors' benefits in occupational benefits plansEnglish · Survivor benefits in occupational pension provision and the boundary between that statutory channel and a private life-insurance benefit.↗
- FINMA — You have a problem with your insurance companyEnglish · First approaching the insurer, possible review of conversion or surrender values and limits of FINMA's role in private-law disputes.↗
- FINMA — Individual life insuranceEnglish · Supervisory framework for individual life insurance, no general approval of rates and specific requirements for surrender values.↗