Do we need to pay for legal cover when buying car insurance?

No win no fee solicitors are very selective about the cases that they take on.

If there is some query over liability, or if it's a very small claim - ie there is no injury claim, they simply wont take it on as if the claim is valued at less than £1000, they are not entitled to costs.

If you have the legal cover on your policy they will work to claim back ALL uninsured losses, whether that be a £50 excess, a hire car claim, cost of broken spectacles, not just the big revenue earning for them cases. If your claim does contain an element of injury, then they will appoint a solicitor to act on your behalf, otherwise their team of recovery specialists will do this in-house.

If the third party is uninsured, has absconded or otherwise they have access to databases and information the general public don't have access to that might help pursue your claim. They will appoint an agent to go and investigate, do a location report, assess their credit status etc and these are all things that you might find difficult to do if you don't have legal cover and need to claim your excess back.

The solicitor they instruct will depend on the wording of your policy. Some INSIST that you use their panel solicitor as they have agreed service level agreements and fixed costs, others will let you use whoever solicitor you prefer, so long as they can agree their costs before instruction.

IMHO legal cover is worth the relatively small amount it costs.

Of course in some accidents liability is accepted and it's all straightforward, you could just send your receipt to the responsible party's insurer and they will refund you, or go to a no win no fee solicitor if you have an injury, but where legal cover really comes into it's own is where things aren't as straightforward as that, you don't have time to be chasing the other insurance company, or if your solicitor wont deal with the case because it's not going to generate them enough income.



Edited to add: Whilst the wording of any legal expenses policy will make reference to 'reasonable chance', the fact is that if you have le cover with your insurer, they may be prepared to fight your case for a lot longer - sometimes even as far as court whereas a nowinnofee solicitor might cut their losses sooner.

The reason they might choose to do this is because they are hoping for your business next year, and the year after that, and so for the relatively small amount they may risk losing by authorising a solicitor to take the matter to court (remembering that they will have negotiated the best possible rate with their own solicitors), is offset by the hope that if they let you have your day in court, you will undoubtedly be more inclined to renew with them, than if they said 'yer on yer own mate'.

A no win no fee solicitor's revenue only relies on the claim that they're dealing with at that time, so they will not want to waste too much time (and therefore money) by pursuing something they are not totally convinced will be successful.

Also worth noting - Steve's absolutely right too re complaints - if you're getting a raw deal from a no win no fee solicitor you're limited as to where you can make a complaint. If you have legal cover and have taken the insurers own solicitor, then you can put pressure on them to sort it out for you too. The solicitors will want to sort it out, because the insurer will be putting hundreds of thousands of pounds of work to them each year, and wont want to bug ger up their contract with the insurer by providing consistently poor service lest the insurer pulls the plug on them! The insurer will have an agreed service level with the solicitors, and will want you to receive the best possible service because of course the solicitors service will have a reflection on how you see your insurer. If you get a rubbish solicitor from the insurer, you're less likely to renew with them again, and take your hard earned money somewhere else