When repairs are more than item is worth  

welcome to europe! Even...
welcome to europe!
Even though the quotes you've got so far sound extra ordinarily expensive, refinishing and reupholstering is often much more expensive in Europe than in the US.
And on top of that Switzerland and Sweden (where I live) are probably among the most expensive countries in the EU. If you are close to the border, it might be worth asking a German company for a quote as well, since this might be a somewhat cheaper option...

Why are you making the decision?
That's terrible news, Riki... But surely you don't have to make the decision. Is there a reason that you don't want to just give those estimates to the insurance company and let them work it out with the repair shops?

do you have an emotional...
do you have an emotional connection with your insurance-agent or are you afraid your insurance fees will rise?
either way, I sympathise with you! my guts turned when reading your story..
I have to agree: when you want to restore something here, than keep in mind that it will be hard to make a profit when you sell.
it's a shame...

The insurance
company will pay, that's not the issue. I just have a huge problem having anybody, me, them or whomever paying those kinds of prices. No wonder premiums are so high!
It would literally be cheaper to ship those pieces back to the US, have them fixed and reship them back to Switzerland, than to pay those fees.
These are not items that I was ever planning on selling. They are in my home for my personal use.
P.S. They also set something heavy on the box that contained the backrest to my Eames lounge chair and crushed it. You already know the rest of the story, don't you. The weight on the top snapped the area under the armrest, through all nine layers of plywood. Well, you can't get HM here, only Vitra. I can't wait to see how much it's going to cost to replace this. A thread for another day.

If I was in your shoes, I'd be rightly outraged
not at the price, but at those stupid, unprofessional movers. Make 'em pay big time for the damage and the hassle they put you through.
It's becoming apparent how much we in the USA take for granted, as regards movers and prices of reupholstery.
Probably the best thing to do is to collect the full value of the damages and select which pieces really mean enough to you to get repaired. then get those few pieces fixed and chuck the ones that are not worth the repair price.
Your sanity and peace of mind is worth more than any of those pieces, so try to keep a prospective on the whole situation, however hard that may be.

Riki, before ordering a...
Riki, before ordering a replacement backrest for your lounge chair, you should make sure the Vitra version has the same dimensions and harware as the HM version. Maybe it's the same, but you never know...
As a comparsion the Eames fiberglass armshells have a different shape here in Europe. The arms are slightly narrower for some reason...

Wow.
Who'd have thought that Swiss movers would be so incompetent! It's an assault to every stereotype I hold dear.
Since you're insured, don't sweat it-- allow the insurance company to decide if the overpriced Swiss upholsterers should be enriched by the slipshod Swiss movers. So long as you're made whole, in the end.

If the upholsterers were aware that it was an insurance claim,
then that's maybe why the quote is so high. Easy money.
Just a thought.....

riki i could send one ...
riki i could send one of my men over to Switzerland to recover the couch. it would take 2 days
for the sofa. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper.

Wow, Riki...
That's absolutely shocking. My condolences.

Y'all
I haven't even told you about the other 7 things that they broke beyond redemption, literally into rubbish.
Let me be perfectly clear. This was not the Swiss movers. This was all the fault of the American packers. As a matter of fact, the Swiss movers were soooo appalled when they opened the container at my new apartment, they stopped everything to take pictures of the jumble that hovered there before their eyes.
On moving day back in May in the US, I was concentrating on monitoring the guys who were packing the breakable stuff. The lamps, the vases, the light fixtures, the Ben Seible china, the crated artwork, etc.
I was paying less attention to the guys who should have been wrapping furniture. I had already explained to them (with pictures!) how important the furniture was. Here's a perfect example. They took my little Eames wire table, put it upside down in the bottom of a packing box, no padding, no wrapping, and put a painted metal candlestick (turquoise)directly on top of it. So for three months, this metal candlestick slid all over across the bottom of my little table. When I unpacked the box, the bottom of the table was all scratched, the HM sticker was shredded in pieces and embedded in the scratches was lovely turquoise paint. Now y'all have made me cry, again.

eek
We had the same kind of thing happen when we moved to Denmark. The American crew was horrible. They packed stuff improperly, they stole stuff, and they would have left a ton of stuff in the house if I hadn't gone through and pointed out all the things they missed. Freaking MORONS.
The Danish viking he-men movers, on the other hand, were great, even the one who smelled of beer at 8 a.m.

Thats horrible...criminally!...
Thats horrible...criminally! My best to you cleaning this mess up.

I think the upholsterer...
...is lying about how much he usually gets. Probably, as someone pointed out, because he is aware it's an insurance job. Some simple math clears this up- ie. he says he gets $5,600 for labor for a two day job. That means he's telling you that he gets $2,800 a day for labor. Let's assume he handles one project at a time, devoting whole days to one piece. Even working a modest 200 days a year, the guy would clear well over half a million. From what I understand, Swiss taxes rarely total more than 30%, so lets use that... he's still clearing nearly $400,000. Hmmm.