March Blog

As the editor of Swedish Press I may be forgiven for being partial to most things Swedish. It's my job to give you Sweden "warts and all" but I know that I tend to expand on the positive side because I think that there is a lot this continent could learn from little Sweden.

On a personal level I am impressed by things like the solidly built houses, the high level of workmanship, the efficient banking system, the postal service, and the recycling systems among other things.

Until now I have also been very partial to the service I have got from my insurance company in Sweden compared to insurance companies here (like when Swedish Press had a break-in) but I am not so sure about this anymore.

We have had two break-ins in our little cottage in Östergötland. The first was fifteen years ago and the thieves got away with all my Karl Johan armchairs and other odds and ends. The insurance company was very helpful and paid us the full replacement value for the stolen goods. In fact the following summer when we realized that there were some Karl Johan stools that were also missing, the insurance company swiftly settled that claim too.

I always talked about this "positive" Swedish insurance story when I heard stories about how some North American companies behaved. I myself had a company tell me to either double my premiums or die before the age of 69 if I wanted to maintain my life insurance at the agreed upon level!

Back in Sweden we had another much more devastating break-in in our cottage in April. This time the thieves must have had a lot of time as they had expertly gone through absolutely everything and taken anything of value. They had even managed to find all our hiding places. Many things, like miniatures of my mother, had a primarily nostalgic value, but there was a lot of very valuable stuff that we had not brought with us to Canada. You just don’t risk shipping valuable glass and porcelain.

After getting expert appraisals of the most important objects we realized that we had been underinsured. The value of all that we had lost was double the amount we were insured for. Resigning ourselves to the loss, we presented our claim to the insurance company only to find out that it would pay out only 50 percent of the amount we were insured for, citing as a reason that we had been underinsured.

I take full responsibility for this. Living abroad, I have been out of touch with the Swedish antiques market and hence not updated the insurance accordingly. At the same time I feel that the insurance company should at least compensate me up to the value I am insured for minus the deductible. I get furious when I think of all the years that I have dutifully paid the hefty premiums only to be rewarded in this way. I think I could even make a case for coming out ahead if I had saved on the premiums all these years.

I guess the lesson here is that insurance companies ultimately put their owners and employees ahead of those they are supposed to give protection to. So be warned!

Have a nice March

Anders

February Blog

An ad in Systembolagets campaign with the headline "We Swedes invented the smartest way in the world to sell alcohol. (Perhaps because we needed it more than others.)"

I dislike monopolies out of principle, but there is one monopoly I really like. In my opinion the Swedish Systembolaget wine and spirits monopoly is a great institution that I hope will prevail in some form, even though the European Union would love to crush it. In response to the nagging from Brussels, Systemet has launched an advertising campaign touting the virtues of the Swedish way of dealing with alcohol.

It wasn't the politicians who created the Swedish alcohol distribution monopoly, it was the miners. The mining authorities in the city of Falun formed the world's first alcohol dispensing monopoly in 1850 to reduce accidents in the mine. By getting rid of the private profit motive they could stem the consumption which then was four times what it is today. Gradually more cities adopted the idea and in 1955 all the local mono-polies were rolled into one - Systembolaget.

Many countries have experimented with alcohol retail monopolies including the United States that, in 1930, realized it was a bad idea to forbid consumption in view of the prevailing attitude towards alcohol.

The billionaire John D Rockefeller sponsored a gigantic study to find the best way to sell alcohol and the answer was the "Swedish method". To this day many US states and Canadian provinces maintain alcohol monopolies.

In Sweden a new study details the probable effects of closing down the alcohol monopoly. According to experts, if strong beer, wine and alcohol would be freely available in all grocery stores, consumption would rise by 30 percent. This would lead to 16 million more sick days and 1 600 alcohol-related deaths. Not to speak of about 14 000 more cases of common assault.

There are no special offers in the boring Systembolaget stores that often dispense their wares across old-fashioned counters. The choice is limited, but the prices are the same wherever you go and you can rely on the value of what they sell. Being the world’s biggest buyer of wine, Systemet often offers great wines at very reasonable prices.

In the olden days British wine merchants used to take the ferry to Göteborg to buy up the grand brands like Lafite Rothschild, because of the relatively low prices for more expensive wines at Systemet stores.

Systembolaget buyers were the first to discover Australian and Chilean wines and they regularly buy some of the best wines from entire regions in Italy, France and Spain.

Have a nice February

Anders

PS. When we write about an interesting book or CD in scandinavian and Swedish Press, many readers contact us to find out where they can buy it. In response to this we are introducing a new service, together with Amazon, making it possible for you to conveniently buy most products we write about at “MustHave” in our www.nordicway.com "Market".