What your household insurance actually covers.
Most collectors find out what their insurance actually covers at the worst possible moment: after the pipe has burst, or the bottle has already broken.
A five-figure bottle bought this year sits, for most buyers, inside the same household policy that covers the television and the bicycles. Nobody chooses that arrangement deliberately; it happens by default, because the bottle went into a rack rather than into a filing system. Whether it is adequate depends on questions almost nobody asks until after a loss: which peril actually happened, what value the policy pays out on, and whether the policy was ever told the bottle existed.
What the base policy already pays for
Standard household insurance in Switzerland, a Hausratversicherung, insures the contents of a home against a defined list of perils: fire, natural hazards such as storm, hail and flood, theft, and water damage. Payment is generally at reinstatement value, meaning what it costs today to replace what was lost with something equivalent.
A wine collection is contents, and the principle is not theoretical. One large Swiss insurer uses exactly this scenario in its own customer material: a flooded basement, and among the itemised loss, replacement of the bottles of wine that were destroyed. Where the cause is one of the named perils, a cellar is paid for like anything else in the flat.
Where it stops
Two gaps matter more than the small print suggests.
Breakage is not fire, theft or water damage. A bottle that falls from a rack, or is knocked over while a room is rearranged, is a different kind of loss, and Swiss household insurers commonly treat it as one: breakage of glass and similar objects is excluded from several base policies and sold back as a separate module rather than bundled in from the start.
Reinstatement value assumes an equivalent exists to buy. For a young case of a classified growth it does: the market publishes a price and the insurer pays it. For the 1961 Latour that came from the Berry Bros. & Rudd Family Reserves, or for the 1946 Pétrus, there is no equivalent bottle on any list to price against. Single provenance, a specific fill level, nothing comparable. Reinstatement is the wrong concept exactly where the value is greatest, for the reason set out in the note on single bottles.
Sub-limits are the quieter version of the same problem. Contents policies commonly name a ceiling for a category such as jewellery or watches. Wine is rarely named as a category at all, which is not generous, it is simply undecided. A single bottle worth what a case of ordinary wine is not automatically assumed to be worth what it is.
Agreed value, and the policy built for it
The instrument built for this is usually sold apart from household contents, as an all-risk extension for valuables. The larger Swiss insurers offer a version of it: cover for theft, accidental damage and destruction, priced against a sum insured that the owner declares rather than folded into the household total, with a deductible commonly set around 10% of the claim. Moving a bottle onto this basis, and off the household sum, often reduces the base premium as well.
| Household contents (base) | All-risk valuables extension | |
|---|---|---|
| Named perils | Fire, natural hazards, theft, water damage | Adds accidental damage and breakage |
| Value basis | Reinstatement value | Agreed value, fixed in advance |
| Wine named as its own category | Rarely | Ask — most list jewellery, art, watches |
| Typical deductible | Set by the base policy | Around 10% of the claim |
The detail worth insisting on is the value basis: agreed value, not reinstatement. Insurer and owner fix a number in advance, from an invoice, an auction record or an appraisal, and that is what is paid if the bottle is lost, with no argument afterwards about what it would have fetched. The paperwork an insurer wants for this is the same paperwork that makes a bottle easier to sell later: an inventory by producer, vintage and format, photographs, and a fill level recorded in the right terms. The inventory steps set out for a sale are the same first afternoon's work for a valuation.
The address the policy is written to
A household policy is written to an address. Wine that lives there, in the rack in the cellar, is inside it, subject to the gaps above. Wine held professionally, in a Swiss bonded warehouse, sits at a different address entirely, and a homeowner should not assume a household policy silently follows it there. Ask the warehouse what it insures, and to what value, in writing, rather than finding out after a claim.
The bottle in between the two addresses is a third case again. A move carries its own risk, and needs to be insured for that specific leg, at an agreed value, rather than left to whichever of the two policies happens to apply.
What we do
Every bottle we hold or move is insured at an agreed value, fixed in writing before anything leaves the cellar, alongside the condition report described in the note on buying safely. Neither number is left to be argued about later.
Once a bottle reaches a collector's own home, it becomes their household risk, and we say so plainly rather than leaving it unspoken. If a bottle is going to sit in a private cellar in Zürich, Geneva or Lugano rather than under bond, the sensible step is a call to the insurer before the delivery, not after. Insurance is one line in the wider account of holding wine as an asset, and it is the line most often left blank.
Does my Swiss household insurance cover a wine collection?
Broadly yes, up to the policy's contents sum and generally at reinstatement value, for the perils named in the policy: fire, natural hazards, theft and water damage. On its own it is not cover for breakage, and it is not the right basis for a bottle that cannot be replaced by buying another one.
Is a broken bottle covered by household insurance?
Not usually as standard. Breakage sits outside the core perils of a household contents policy and is commonly sold back as a separate extension, the same way window and glass breakage often is.
What is agreed value insurance, and why does it matter for old wine?
It is cover where insurer and owner fix the value in advance, from an invoice or an appraisal, so a loss is paid at that figure rather than argued over afterwards. It matters most for a bottle with no equivalent on the market, such as a single 1961 or 1946 vintage, where reinstatement value has nothing left to reinstate against.
Is wine held in a bonded warehouse covered by my home insurance?
Not automatically. A household policy is written to an address, and a bonded warehouse is a different one. Check the position in writing rather than assuming it, or rely on the insurance the warehouse itself carries.
Does Croian & Hein insure the bottles it sells and stores?
Yes. Every bottle is insured at an agreed value, fixed in writing before it moves, and its condition is recorded in writing at the same time.