Do you really need motor legal protection?

jonny2510

Is it worth paying an extra £20-25 for?

What exactly does it give you?

(The car's worth about £400 if that makes a difference)

lisyloo

Is it worth paying an extra £20-25 for?

IMO it depends on how capable/articulate your are at fighting your own corner and how much family support you have (in case you are personally incapacitated).

What exactly does it give you?

Car insurance if for you car alone. It does not usually cover personal injury, your excess, time off work, hire car (these are generally called uninsured losses).
You have 3 choices to get this money back.
You can fight for it yourself. The downside here is that you might lack the knowledge about legal proecsses and how much your injury is "worth", so you could get less than you are entitled to. You might also be in hospital or traumatised so you may not be in a good position to fight you own corner.
A second option is to get a "no win no fee" lawyer after the event. One downsides to this is they won't cover "small" claims, so they cherry pick.
A third option is to get the insurance for a relatively small fee and have the legal stuff taken care of. They will still not take cases that have little chance of winning, but they won't cherry pick on pure profitability.

Personally I like to have it and I think it's a relatively small amount and greater savings can be made to most peoples budgets elsewhere without sacrificing service e.g. swithching gas/electricity.
However it's up to you.
If you want to rely on the "no win no fee" people or do it yourself then that's entirely your choice.

The car's worth about £400 if that makes a difference

Makes absolutely no difference to the cost of injuries, time off work, replacement car etc.
In fact there is a high chance your car would be written off and you'd need replacement car hire, so if you don't have access to alternative transport (like the bus) then you are quite likely to need a courtesy/hire car in the event that your car is not driveable.

BTW - You can get "credit hire" or "accident management" companies to provide you with a car up front.
Some people have found their high charges are disputed by the 3rd party insurer and then the consumer has to go to court (the legal stuff has to be done in the name of the consumer although the argument is between the credit hire company and the insurer).
Personally I like a quiet life so I'd get the train, but it's all down to personal choice.
Just be careful of what you are agreeing to.
If you get a car on credit hire terms then you have to agree to co-operate with their attempts to reclaim their costs and this can mean court action/judgments in your name and time off work to go to court (you will find recent thread on this).

thenudeone

But there are third-party companies; you don't have to use your insurer's cover.

For example, anyone who works or worked for government, government out-sourcing or ex-nationalised companies is eligible for membership of CSMA for £15 pa which includes legal cover for the member and spouse. Referrers get a £5 voucher too;);)

lisyloo

which includes legal cover

Just make sure it covers what you need.
For example household legal cover does not usually include motooring accidents whilst driver or passenger.

DCFC79

Ive considered not having it on the policy in the past but always ask for it just for peace of mind IF i ever need to use it but to date ive not needed it due to no accidents.

lisyloo

I have a combined policy for house and car/bikes rather than paying for 4 policies.
But I don't think they are easy to come by unless you deal with a broker.

orrery

jonny2510 wrote: »

Is it worth paying an extra £20-25 for?

What exactly does it give you?

(The car's worth about £400 if that makes a difference)

I have it removed from all my policies after I found it useless in the past. The cover is usually sub-contracted to a third party company who has no incentive to provide you with any service that would cost them money to provide. I'd guess that the insurance company pockets the vast majority of your premium.

jonny2510

Well thanks for the replies.

General consensus seems to be to go for it.

I was hoping everyone would say "nah it's a waste of time, don't bother" to put my mind at rest! I'll maybe look at "bolting it on" to my current policy.

Orrery, I had a similar problem with plumbing and drainage cover in the past. When it came time to claim (blocked drains), they found an exclusion meaning they didn't need to send anyone out (leaving me to sort it myself).

roddydogs

Ive always get it "Free" by negotiating when I renew.

lazer

In the case of car insurance I would suggest you don't need it.

As you can only claim personal injury after an accident that was not your fault, then the legal costs af this are covered by the third party.

I believe the only time it would be useful is if there is a dispute over blame for the accident.

I have claimed for personal injury (after a lorry went into the back of my car), and simply contacted a solicitor who done all the work for me, and I never seen how much her bill was as this was covered straight by the thrid party.

Although - TBH I believe in the concept of self insuring for most things, the only things I would insure are the car (compulsary for third party - although I do insure fully comp as usually little difference in price), house buildings and contents (Compulsary for mortgage amd simply becasue of the sheer cost of replacing the contents should the worst happen), and finally travel insurance (mainly to cover medical costs).
For the extras - I put so much into a seperate bank account, which builds up and can then be used to pay for replacement phones etc, breakdown call outs, Legal fees... So far, after doing this for around 6 years, the account has not been touched!

pineapple

The only time I thought it would have been able to help was when my old but wonderful car was written off by a guy turning across a junction straight into me. There was no one hurt, there were no witnesses and the police weren't interested. The driver said he was 'in the trade' and offered to fix my car!! I suspected he had no insurance as he wasn't able to produce details. I reported the matter along with his reg number to my insurance company. They located the owner who said he no longer had a car and denied the whole incident. Unbelievably they just dropped the case and I never got compensation of any kind. Legal expenses insurance? Bah humbug.....