Major insurance companies

In 2015 the Swiss insurers accounts for over 43% of Switzerland's financial industry. It ranks among the top ten Swiss industries and creates value of some 26.1 billion of Swiss francs. This translates into a 4.2% share in the overall economy. Insurances can be classified into three categories : lief, indemnity and reinsurance.

Life insurance
Life insurance encompasses an insurance that protects against financial consequences of life-related risks such as old age, death and disability/incapacity to work. The offering includes individual life insurance and group life insurance and is used especially within the framework of the third pillar of the retirement provision.

Indemnity insurance
Indemnity insurance cover is provided if a financial loss is the prerequisite and criterion upon which the insurer's obligation to indemnify is evaluated.
The Swiss Insurance Policies Act classes both non-life and health insurers as indemnity insurance companies. Many types of insurance thus fall under this umbrella, including sickness, fire and property damage, accident, liability and legal expenses.
Switzerland’s largest insurers in 2015 were AXA Insurance, Schweizerische Mobiliar, Zurich Insurance, Allianz Suisse, Helvetia and Basler Versicherung AG. With written premiums of some CHF 13,000 billion, their combined share of the domestic market amounted to almost 75%.
The biggest four health insurers in 2015 were Helsana Zusatzversicherungen, Swica Krankenversicherung, CSS and Visana. They made up just over 56% of the Swiss market with total written premiums of around CHF 5,100 billion.

Reinsurance
Reinsurers are companies which insure insurers. The aim of reinsurance is to spread a risk between a direct insurer and a reinsurer based on a certain percentage. An insurer who issues a contract to a customer is referred to as a "direct insurer". By passing on part of the business to a reinsurer, he acts as an assignor whilst the reinsurer who accepts the risk becomes an assignee. That part of the risk that the first insurer bears is called the "retention" and that part which he passes on the "second risk". In many cases they are more broadly diversified, both geographically and by sector, than primary insurers. They are therefore better positioned to absorb the financial impacts of major loss events (e.g. natural disasters).