"legal cover" on car and house insurance ....

pennymakespounds

always somewhere in the depths of car and house insurance policies is "legal cover" .

Think it's around £20 on cars .. not sure on houses.

with 3 houses and 4 cars to sort for the family .. certainly adds up over the years !

guess they're all individual and only relevant to eah policy.....

I wonder ...... is there any way of buying just one .... a "legal cover policy to cover all legal cover requirements " ??

Astaroth

There arent that many pure legal expenses policies out there - not that I have looked that hard.

I know that I have the LE cover on my home policy more for the legal advice line than anything else. I did find one policy which was purely legal advice and none of the other benefits of the policy and it was £90 a year -v- my home legal which is £15

You say you have 3 houses? Are these all owned/ occupied by the same group of people or is one house yours and the other 2 your kids/ parents?

Motor LE is specific to the vehicle and so you would need one per vehicle.

Home LE is predominately specific to the residents of the building and only partially the building itself (hency why it is normally called "Family" rather than home) so it may be worth only having 1 policy if the other 2 residences are simply holiday/ weekday houses as you would be covered for legal advice/ personal injury/ employement claims/ contract etc irrespective but I am not certain on things like boundary disputes which may be specific to the insured property.

pennymakespounds

You say you have 3 houses? Are these all owned/ occupied by the same group of people or is one house yours and the other 2 your kids/ parents?


yes.

Astaroth

Erm, it was an either or question

pennymakespounds

sorry! going too fast !

family home + 2 kids homes

Astaroth

In which case the kids (assuming they arent just uni homes etc) would need their own legal protection as they are no longer resident at the main address.

pennymakespounds

astaroth thanks .

had a feeling it wasn't going to be a runner..... or i'd have seen about it and known about it !!

Must be a big opportunity for someone oneday to offer something of that type .. can't be difficult ?

Same as ... crazy when i think of the time i spend doing 3 house and 4 car insurances every year. .. ducking and diving all over the place every time to get the best deal .... and i've never claimed a penny on any of them in my life !!...( can't afford to claim for various bumps on the kids cars as excesses too high and screw up the no claims !!

Suprised there's not loads of options by insurers to put the whole lot together on one big policy .. far more chance of keeping all of someones business year after year .. and must be worth the £while getting a handful of orders all together as one ?

pennymakespounds

astaroth thanks .

had a feeling it wasn't going to be a runner..... or i'd have seen about it and known about it !!

Must be a big opportunity for someone oneday to offer something of that type .. can't be difficult ?

Same as ... crazy when i think of the time i spend doing 3 house and 4 car insurances every year. .. ducking and diving all over the place every time to get the best deal .... and i've never claimed a penny on any of them in my life !!...( can't afford to claim for various bumps on the kids cars as excesses too high and screw up the no claims !!

Suprised there's not loads of options by insurers to put the whole lot together on one big policy .. far more chance of keeping all of someones business year after year .. and must be worth the £while getting a handful of orders all together as one ?

Astaroth

It isnt difficult in the sense of what the product offers but because how the product works behind the scenes it would be difficult for the insurers to do and to underwrite.

An insurer sells post code areas to solicitors. Whilst they cannot charge per claim they know roughly how many policies they have in each postcode and they know their risk profile so they can make a fair guess at how many claims it will be. If it was made to be a single policy insurers would have much more difficult knowing how many claims it will be as one person could have 2 people and 4 cars/ 2 houses covered in multiple postcode areas.

The other consideration is that at the moment LE is a flat rate charge however like most things, high risk drivers are more likely to incur costs for the insurer under the LE policy so we would have to go from flat rate to underwritten which would mean major system changes for insurers. At the moment the risk aspect can be basically ignored as the LE is tied to the policy which is risk priced.

If the Clementi recommendations go through and insurers can then own solicitors rather than having to have panel then things may change.

I know that the bundle insurance has been considered in the past and I am sure that it is being considered still. One of the concerns is that it is a bit of "all or nothing" - great if you get it all, bad if your home book takes a hit and you have to put up your rating on that to compensate but then not only loose your home customers but also your motor/ travel/ pet/ creditor etc as they are all on a single policy.

To be honest, there are so many difficulties to overcome to launch this type of policy that I could only see a new startup/ new brand being willing to do it initially. Others like NU or RSA may follow once they saw it was safe.