Complaints linked to health insurance companies once again dominated this year the ranking of grievances recorded by the Alliance of Consumer Defense Organizations (FRC, as well as its German-speaking and Ticino counterparts). The increase in premiums, which weighs heavily on households, has generated more than 1,200 requests for support from the offices of the three organizations. Added to this are disputes over benefit statements, misunderstandings over insurance models and errors in medical bills.
Consumers are also annoyed by other practices: misleading prices, “shrinkflation” (editor’s note: packaging whose quantity drops and the price remains stable) and geoblocking (editor’s note: limiting access to content on the internet by depending on your location, a practice prohibited in Switzerland) generated around 800 complaints in 2024. Guarantees, which are often refused to customers by making them bear part of the responsibility for a defect, have alone generated 725 complaints. Concerning telecommunications, 630 complaints targeted problems linked to subscriptions, down compared to 2023. Finally, 600 complaints concerned abuses by collection houses, accused of aggressiveness and unjustified billing.
Despite a homogeneous national trend, certain specificities emerge depending on the region. In German-speaking Switzerland, complaints related to online commerce, particularly “dropshipping” and costly returns, are on the rise. In French-speaking Switzerland, warranty disputes remain recurring, with sellers shifting the burden of proof onto consumers. In Ticino, health insurance companies largely dominate claims, the result of a particularly marked increase in premiums (+10.5%).
Swiss
