Home ownership: Dishwasher

 

As I may have mentioned, John and I bought an apartment last autumn.  No sooner did we move in, than the dishwasher broke.  Last week, we finally got around to having a repair person come look at it.  Predictably, we were faced with the question of whether the repair was worthwhile.  What we hadn’t considered, until the repairman mentioned it, was that the repair is probably covered by our hemförsäkring (home owners insurance)!!  We would have never even considered it!  We called, and sure enough, it is!!  So we need only pay the deductible!  Considering the replacement cost of at least 1 ½ times the cost in the U.S., or the full cost of the repair, we are pretty happy.

 

Also of note:

All of this took quite a while to figure out.  And as the helpful repairman was explaining this, and waiting while we tried to get through to the insurance company, I was seeing dollar signs.  When he was leaving I told him that in the U.S., repair-persons charge by the length time they are in the home.  He said that is not the case in Sweden.  He said the cost of the visit would be ~ 100 SEK ($16).  Had we chosen to not have it repaired, I think it would have been more.  Maybe 600 SEK.  He also said that we were to pay nothing  that day, but that we would pay when he came back with the part, and the machine was repaired. 

 

So, yes, Sweden is expensive.  No question.  But it was nice to have an “upside” to the costs.