How To Protect Your Assets With Swiss Insurance Policies And Annuities

When you have amassed a noteworthy amount of wealth, you have many options to keep it protected. You can consider an offshore account that can offer confidentiality and partial amount of asset protection, or you can choose an offshore trust that can offer tough asset protection at the cost of providing complete control over the asset.


However, in Switzerland there is complete asset protection for foreign investors. The benefit of having a Swiss annuity is that when you declare bankruptcy, your creditors won’t be able to have any hold over your annuity. Additionally, there is complete privacy similar to Swiss banks. The insurance firms in Switzerland are not allowed to reveal any information unless there is a court order.


Contrary to trusts, your money starts accumulating immediately, as there are no huge set-up costs involved. There are additional benefits from using insurance policies as tools for asset protection. An insurance policy is comparatively uncontroversial. The value growth of an insurance policy is tax-free in most of the countries, unless it gets realized. It is also allowed to pass the benefits to the beneficiaries without paying any tax.


Additionally, insurance policies are assets that are astonishingly flexible. Swiss annuities and life insurance policies can be used as holding setups in order to protect any core investment portfolio’s value. You can find flexible and fixed annuities in addition to different hybrid and variable life policies. You can also create customized polices designed in order to suit to your needs.


When you hold assets in a policy, they are measured to be owned by the insurance firm. Due to this reason, you can hold assets confidentially and you are not subjected to the intermediary regulations of tax bodies in your country. Managing your Swiss annuity properly protects your assets completely. Using Swiss insurance policies in order to protect your assets is attached to the selection of beneficiaries and if the assigning of beneficiaries is revocable or irrevocable. If you purchase a Swiss insurance policy and name a beneficiary irrevocably, it is no longer your asset and it is excluded from your bankruptcy estate.


When a spouse or descendent(s) is designated as revocable beneficiary, debt collection procedures from creditors cannot have access to your policy. Additionally, even the inclusion of the policy or its seizure in a bankruptcy proceeding is ordered by a foreign court, it is not legally binding in Switzerland.


When a policy owner declares bankruptcy, the policy ownership is moved automatically to revocable beneficiaries, making a Swiss life insurance policy or annuity completely protected from any bankruptcy proceedings. Since the Swiss Financial Market and Supervisory Authority are protecting the policy, either of the beneficiaries is capable of giving any instruction to the insurance firm.


Another protection offered to Swiss life insurance policies and annuities is in the form of immunity to duress. When a policy owner is forced to revoke the designation of a beneficiary under court orders, a Swiss insurance firm receiving the letter from the owner doesn’t consider it to be the true intent of the owner, but a forced instruction of a foreign court.