Hemförsäkring: home insurance in Sweden explained
The second question my landlord asked me in 2022, straight after "When do you want to move in?", was: "Du har väl en hemförsäkring?" ("You do have home insurance, right?") I was sitting in a café in Linné with the rental contract on the table, and I had to admit I didn't. Hemförsäkring? Sounded like contents insurance. I hadn't had one in Berlin. Never needed one before.
Three days later I knew: nobody moves into a home in Sweden without a hemförsäkring. And what Swedes call hemförsäkring is something quite different from the German contents insurance I knew. It's more of an insurance bundle that covers contents, personal liability, legal expenses and even travel cancellation all at once. A single policy for 90 to 200 SEK a month, replacing what in Germany would be three or four separate policies.
People moving to Sweden from abroad regularly get this wrong. Either they pay twice, with the old policies at home still running while new Swedish ones are taken out on top, or they assume their liability insurance from home is enough and find themselves without cover at the first water leak. Both are avoidable once you've understood the system.
Why home insurance is effectively mandatory in Sweden
On paper, hemförsäkring isn't a legal requirement. In practice it is. Three mechanisms make sure of that:
First, most landlords require it in writing when you move in. With municipal housing companies such as Familjebostäder or Poseidon, it's a standard condition in the rental contract. Private landlords often ask about it verbally, and if they don't ask, that doesn't mean "not needed". It means the landlord assumes you have one. If something happens and you're uninsured, it gets expensive and unpleasant.
Second, almost every bostadsrättsförening (the housing cooperative you automatically join when you buy a bostadsrätt, a cooperative flat) requires its members to have a hemförsäkring. It's written into the stadgar (the association's statutes) and is often checked before you move in. In extreme cases, having no insurance can lead to your membership being terminated.
Third, practically everyone who lives here simply needs it. If your dishwasher leaks and the water drips through the ceiling of the flat below you, in Sweden you are personally liable for the damage. Without a liability component (which in Germany, for example, is a separate policy, but in Sweden is part of the hemförsäkring), you pay out of your own pocket. That can run into five or six figures.
What home insurance actually covers (and this is the surprise)
In many countries you put your insurance together piece by piece. In Germany, for example: contents insurance for the furniture, personal liability for damage to others, legal expenses insurance for the lawyer, travel insurance for the holiday. Four policies, four premiums, four sets of terms.
In Sweden, a hemförsäkring bundles all of it. A standard policy from a mid-sized insurer such as Folksam, Trygg-Hansa or If typically includes:
Lösöre (contents): everything not permanently attached to the home. Furniture, electronics, clothes, books, crockery. Insured against fire, water damage, burglary and theft. Standard sum insured: 200,000 to 1,000,000 SEK depending on the policy.
Ansvarsförsäkring (personal liability): if you unintentionally cause damage to someone or their property. Classic cases: water damage in the neighbour's flat, a bike accident with property damage, a friend's piece of furniture you broke. Standard sum: 5 to 10 million SEK.
Rättsskydd (legal expenses): lawyer and court costs in legal disputes, for example tenancy or purchase disputes, disputes with an insurer, inheritance matters. Excess typically 20 to 25 per cent, maximum 200,000 to 250,000 SEK.
Reseskydd (travel insurance): trip interruption, illness abroad, delayed luggage, cancellation for medical reasons. Usually valid for 45 days per trip, worldwide. If you fly back home regularly, you may be able to cancel a separate travel insurance policy from your home country.
Överfallsskydd (assault cover): a Swedish speciality. Compensation if you're the victim of a violent crime, even if the offender is unknown or can't pay.
Optional add-ons that are often worth it:
Allrisk (also called drulleförsäkring): the "clumsiness insurance". It covers damage you cause yourself where there's no classic insured event: your smartphone falls into the toilet, coffee spilt over your MacBook, the bike accidentally falls off the car. Extra premium around 30 to 60 SEK a month. Worth it, especially if you have expensive electronics.
Bostadsrättstillägg: if you own a bostadsrätt, you also need this add-on. It insures the fixed parts of the flat (kitchen, bathroom, flooring, built-in wardrobes) that aren't covered by the housing association's insurance. The förening only insures the building itself, not the inside of your flat. Without bostadsrättstillägg, you pay for water damage in your own bathroom yourself.
Bortaskydd: extended cover for things you have with you outside the home: the laptop in the café, the camera on your travels, the bike at the tram stop. Already included in some standard policies, an extra in others.
What home insurance costs: realistic figures for 2026
Premiums vary a lot by location, type of home, sum insured and insurer. The figures below are typical ranges I know from my own experience and from the comparison sites Compricer and Insurello (as of spring 2026):
Single household, 1–2 room rental flat in Gothenburg, standard package: 90 to 130 SEK a month, i.e. roughly 1,100 to 1,600 SEK a year.
Couple or small family, 3-room rental flat: 140 to 200 SEK a month.
Bostadsrätt with bostadsrättstillägg: 180 to 260 SEK a month depending on flat size and municipality.
Family in a detached house (villa): 300 to 500 SEK a month. Here the hemförsäkring is usually combined with a villaförsäkring, which covers the building itself.
The excess (självrisk) is typically 1,500 to 3,000 SEK per claim. Look at this carefully when comparing, because low premiums often mean a high excess.
The insurers at a glance
Four large insurers dominate the Swedish market, plus a growing number of digital providers:
Folksam: the cooperative classic, well established, solid standard packages, customer service mostly in Swedish. If you're a member of a Swedish trade union, you often get discounts.
Trygg-Hansa: a similar profile, broad branch network, a bit more expensive than Folksam, but often faster claims handling.
If Skadeförsäkring: the largest insurer in Scandinavia, an international feel, app-based service, English-language support available. For newcomers it's often the easiest way in.
Länsförsäkringar: organised regionally (every län, or county, has its own company), good local service, personal contacts. In Gothenburg this runs through Länsförsäkringar Göteborg och Bohuslän.
Hedvig: the digital newcomer, app-only, transparent prices, very fast claims settlement. The most modern experience, but the youngest company, with a smaller claims volume than the established players.
Ica Försäkring, Coop, Tre Kronor: budget providers that sell through supermarket chains or bank partners. Cheap premiums, often a higher excess and narrower cover. Read carefully before signing.
My own route: If for the first twelve months, because of the English-language support, then a switch to Länsförsäkringar, because a comparison on Compricer showed prices 18 per cent lower for comparable cover. Time it took to switch: 20 minutes on the phone.
Your insurance back home: what to keep and what to cancel (Germany as the worked example)
The details depend on your home country and your policies, so check your own contracts. Here's how it works for German policies, which is what I had:
If you had a German Hausratversicherung (contents insurance), you can cancel it after moving away. It only covers your main home in Germany and is useless abroad. Notice period: usually three months before the end of the insurance period, or you can use a special right to cancel when you move away.
German Privathaftpflicht (personal liability) is a special case: it often continues to apply abroad, but usually only for temporary stays. If you move your permanent residence abroad, the cover ends. Check carefully, otherwise you're double-insured with no real benefit.
German Rechtsschutzversicherung (legal expenses insurance) practically never covers Swedish legal disputes; its legal standing and territorial scope end when you move away. Cancel it.
German Auslandsreisekrankenversicherung (travel health insurance) can still make sense if you travel regularly to countries outside Europe (the USA, Asia). The Swedish hemförsäkring covers 45 days per trip, which is enough for most people.
Rule of thumb: after your first three months in Sweden, go through all your insurance policies from home, assess honestly which ones still pay out, and cancel the rest. If you don't, in the first year you can easily pay 600 to 900 euros twice over (that's the range I've seen with German policies).
Taking out home insurance without a personnummer: is it possible?
One of the practical hurdles: most insurers want a personnummer (the Swedish personal identity number) and BankID to sign up online. That's a chicken-and-egg problem for every newcomer. The personnummer only arrives after 4 to 8 weeks, but the landlord wants proof of insurance on moving-in day.
Three routes work in practice:
First: call instead of signing up online. If, Trygg-Hansa and Länsförsäkringar will issue policies with a samordningsnummer (coordination number, also called a T-number) or a passport number if you call them directly. English works everywhere. You get a provisional policy by email, which landlords accept.
Second: Hedvig also accepts a passport + Swedish address in the app. Very straightforward; I know several newcomers who started that way.
Third: through your employer. If you're coming with a job offer, you can often join via the employer's group agreement with Folksam or a union insurance scheme. Registration then goes through HR, with no direct sign-up needed.
As soon as the personnummer arrives, the policy can be updated within minutes. The insurer still pays out in the meantime; cover depends on the contract being signed, not on the administrative record.
What to look out for in the policy
From the pitfalls that I and people I know have run into over four years in Sweden, these are the three points most often underestimated in practice:
Check the excess for each type of claim, not just the standard figure. Water damage often has its own, higher excess (5,000 SEK instead of 1,500 SEK). Bike theft outside the home can even carry an excess of 25 per cent of the loss. Go through every item under "Självrisker" in the policy document.
Tak (the maximum sum) for expensive individual items. The standard is often a maximum of 30,000 SEK per item. If you own camera equipment worth 80,000 SEK, you need to add an individual policy (objektsförsäkring) or raise the maximum. Otherwise, if something happens, you get 30,000, not the real value.
No automatic index-linking. Swedish sums insured are often not automatically adjusted for inflation. If you let the same policy run for ten years, you're underinsured in real terms. Reviewing the policy every three years is a sensible routine.
Conclusion, and the reflex you should drop
If you're moving to Sweden from a country like Germany, you probably have the reflex of buying insurance policies one by one and comparing them one by one. In Sweden the system works differently: a hemförsäkring is a bundle that you take out once and that covers four areas at the same time. That saves money and admin, as long as you understand what's already included.
The most expensive mistake isn't choosing the wrong insurance. The most expensive mistake is having none at all when the first water leak happens, and that happens more often in Swedish rental flats than you'd think. Old copper pipes, freezing winter weeks, dense construction: a leak spreads fast.
My practical advice: on the day you get the keys, or at the latest three days before, call an insurer, get a provisional policy by email, show it to the landlord, move in. Then within the first two months compare on Compricer or Insurello and switch if it makes sense. In Sweden that's much easier than in Germany, with no notice period.
If you're buying a bostadsrätt, think about bostadsrättstillägg straight away. If you live in a house, combine hemförsäkring with villaförsäkring. If you're living in an andrahand (sublet) for a few months, take out a policy anyway. Otherwise, even damage during a short stay will hit you financially in full.
A hemförsäkring costs less than a streaming subscription and a dinner out put together. It's the most reassuring 100 SEK you'll spend in Sweden.
Further reading:
- Swedish authorities roadmap: Skatteverket, BankID and bank account in the right order
- Applying for a personnummer in Sweden: the complete guide
Buying a house in Sweden: practical guide, the in-depth guide on this topic, is currently available in German: view it in the shop.
I'm Sebastian Schiefner, a photographer in Gothenburg, and I help people who are moving to West Sweden with finding a home and buying property. Free intro call.
