Insurance is the dullest corner of personal finance and the only one where a careless decision can cost you everything you have built. I paid for things I did not need for years, while walking around without cover that would have cost a few hundred kronor a month. That is the usual combination, and it is not laziness: the industry sells hardest exactly where the need is smallest.
Start by finding out what you already have. If you have a collective agreement at work you are already sitting on life cover, work-injury cover and a sickness top-up that you do not pay a krona for. On top of that, almost everyone needs home insurance, everyone with children needs child insurance, and most people need protection against a long loss of income. Product insurance on phones and payment protection on loans you can leave alone. The rule that sorts all of it: insure what you cannot afford to lose, pay for the rest yourself.
I go through what the collective agreement gives you for free, the home insurance everyone needs, cover for when your income disappears, child insurance, when life insurance is actually needed, and which policies you can comfortably decline. If you want to see how much of a hit your finances can take, run the financial health check first.
Start with what you already have
This is step one and almost everyone skips it. If you have a collective agreement at work, a package of insurances comes with it, paid for by your employer. Before you buy anything privately you need to know exactly what is already there, or you risk paying twice for the same cover. Ask HR, or log in at Avtalat, Collectum or Fora depending on where you work.
| Insurance | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| TGL (life cover) | A lump sum to survivors. For private-sector white-collar employees it is 6 price base amounts, meaning 355,200 kr for 2026. The amount tapers from age 55, but the full sum is paid regardless of age if you have a child under 17. |
| TFA (work injury) | Covers accidents at work, accidents on the way to and from work, and occupational illness. Pays for lost income, costs, and pain and suffering, the things the statutory work-injury insurance does not cover. |
| AGS (avtalsgruppsjukförsäkring, the collective-agreement sickness top-up) | Adds around 12.5 per cent on top of sickness benefit from day 15 to day 360, on income up to 10 price base amounts. You have to apply yourself, it does not arrive automatically. |
| Transition cover (TRR/TSL) | Coaching and, in some cases, severance pay if you are made redundant. The terms differ between white-collar and blue-collar agreements. |
| Occupational pension | Your occupational pension, plus premium waiver that keeps paying in for you while you are sick or on parental leave. The single biggest item in the package. |
AGS is not paid out automatically. You have to apply to Afa Försäkring yourself, and Försäkringskassan has found that many people on long-term sick leave never do, and so miss money they are entitled to. If you are signed off for more than two weeks: apply. The same goes for TFA after a work injury.
If you have no collective agreement, none of this exists. You should then either negotiate equivalent cover as part of the job or buy it privately, and the latter is more expensive. I would treat the absence of a collective agreement as a salary question: the package is worth thousands a month and should show up in your gross pay.
Home insurance is the one everybody needs
If you are only going to hold one insurance policy, make it this one. It costs a few hundred kronor a month and contains five things covering completely different risks: cover for your belongings, liability cover if someone claims damages from you, legal expenses cover in a dispute, assault cover, and travel cover while you are away. The liability part is the genuinely important one: cause a water leak that damages a neighbouring property and the claim can reach amounts no private individual can absorb.
Three things are worth checking. Travel cover normally runs for 45 days, so a longer trip needs separate insurance. If you live in a bostadsrätt you need a bostadsrättstillägg for the interior you are responsible for, but many associations have bought collective cover for all members, so ask your association before paying for your own. And all-risk cover, often called drulle, covers you accidentally breaking your own things. That last one makes almost every product insurance redundant, which we will come back to.
If your income disappears
Your biggest asset is not the flat or the fund portfolio, it is your ability to work for another twenty or thirty years. Yet people insure the phone and not that. Two things can knock out your income, illness and unemployment, and they are handled by completely separate systems.
For illness, Försäkringskassan pays around 80 per cent of your SGI up to the ceiling, the collective agreement tops it up through AGS, and after that it stops. If you earn above the ceiling, or have no collective agreement, the gap gets large and a sickness and accident policy is worth looking at. Read the whole timeline of what happens when you get sick before deciding, because the need varies enormously with salary and agreement.
For unemployment there is a-kassa, and since October 2025 it is based on income rather than hours worked. The ceiling sits at an income of 34,000 kr a month, giving at most 27,200 kr before tax if you have been a member for at least twelve months. Earn more than that and a-kassa only covers part of your salary, which is where income insurance comes in: it tops up above the ceiling and is usually already included in your union fee. Two things narrow it: a qualifying period of typically twelve months, and a limited duration, often around 100 to 150 days. Work out what you would actually get in the a-kassa calculator.
Child insurance: the most important one you buy yourself
If you have children and can only face one insurance decision, make it this one. The municipality has an accident policy for schoolchildren, and most parents assume it is enough. It covers accidents, often only during school hours, and it never covers illness. That is the crux: in children, illness causes considerably more permanent disability than accidents do. A private sickness and accident policy for children covers both.
The most important thing about child insurance is when you take it out, not which company you pick. Anything that has shown symptoms before the policy started is excluded, and that is where nearly every dispute arises. Take it out as early as possible, ideally in the first weeks. The part that matters most in the long run is economic disability, meaning compensation if the child cannot work fully as an adult. Also read the terms on neuropsychiatric diagnoses, where many insurers pay limited amounts or nothing at all.
Life insurance: when is it needed?
Life insurance is not about your age but about two things: does someone else depend on your income, and are there debts that outlive you? A partner and two children in a house with a mortgage is a clear yes. A debt-free person with nobody depending on them needs none at all, whatever a salesperson says. The test is simple: could the people left behind carry the housing costs without your salary?
Check TGL first. With a collective agreement there is already a lump sum of 355,200 kr for 2026 if you are a private-sector white-collar employee, plus supplements for children. Buy private life cover as a top-up on that, not as if you had nothing. A common rule of thumb for those with children under 18 is around half a million plus half an annual salary per child, but it is better to work from your actual housing costs. And do not forget to review the named beneficiaries: insurance is paid out beside the inheritance, to whoever you have named, which matters especially if you are cohabiting rather than married.
The ones you can skip
Product insurance and extended warranties on phones, computers and appliances are the clearest case. Finansinspektionen reviewed them in 2023 and found that the companies' costs make up nearly 60 per cent of premium income, while what is actually paid out in claims is around half of that. The regulator's conclusion was blunt: consumers' need is small and often these are not needed. Add that the Consumer Sales Act gives you three years to complain about original defects, and that your home insurance all-risk cover handles dropping the phone on the floor. You are paying a second time for something you already have.
Loan protection and payment protection sold alongside a loan belong in the same category. The terms are narrow (permanent employment, not on probation, full working capacity), only involuntary unemployment counts, and the waiting period is often over 30 days. The exclusions therefore bite hardest in precisely the situations people buy the cover for. Trip cancellation cover, meanwhile, is often already included in your home insurance or through your card.
One exception that often ends up on lists like this by mistake: pet insurance. It is not a waste. Swedish veterinary care has no public subsidy and no cost ceiling, and a single operation can run into tens of thousands of kronor. That is exactly the kind of large, unpredictable risk insurance exists for, unlike an 8,000 kr phone you could replace out of your emergency fund.
You cannot profit from a loss
This is the rule that makes over-insuring pointless, and surprisingly few people know it. Under the Insurance Contracts Act, if the same interest is insured against the same risk with several companies, each company is liable as if it alone had issued the policy, but you are never entitled to more compensation than the actual loss. The companies apportion the cost between themselves; you do not get paid twice. In practice, two overlapping policies mean double the premium and the same payout. Before you take out anything new: read what you already have.
My take
I use a single rule: insure what you cannot afford to lose, pay for the rest yourself. It sorts the entire list without you having to understand a single policy term. A broken phone is an annoyance, not a catastrophe, so that comes out of the buffer. A child who can never work full time, a water leak at the neighbour's, or a family losing its earner are not things a buffer covers, so those you insure. My concrete suggestion: spend one evening listing what you already have through work, what you pay for today, and what would genuinely break your finances. Most people find they can cancel something small and should add something large. And as always: this is how I think about it, not advice, so read the terms before you sign.