Legal Expenses cover with House Contents insurance

Oxford_Guy

Is Legal Expenses cover with house contents insurance worth it? Last time I renewed I think I paid about £28 for this add-on.

InsideInsurance

Depends....

24/7 legal advice
Provision of legal representation on cases involving employment, property, contract & consumer including those in the small track

If its worth it depends on (1) do you get a free helpline through anything else? some bank accounts include it as standard and (2) are you the sort that would want to sue if your wash machine broke down after 13 months and the retailer would only tell you it had a 12 month warranty or would you just buy another one?

thenudeone

I've used legal cover 3 times in about 20 years:
1) a car dealer refused to transfer the warranty to new owner (who wanted to buy my car). the legal helpline advised me of the wording to put in a letter to the dealer, which worked.
2) online retailer refused to take back item which had been described with the wrong dimensions. legal cover contacted them, arranged return, and then chased for a refund. success.
3) got legal representation in claim for unfair dismissal. was very useful but they eventually dropped it as they considered the prospects of success too low.

Whether you want to pay for this sort of cover is a personal choice. You could just put the money aside into a savings account every year so you have a pot in case you need to use it for legal advice. You may get free cover from membership of a trade union or other association. In these days of no win no fee solicitors, legal expenses cover less important than it once was, but without a crystal ball I couldn't say whether it would be worth it for you.

lisyloo

I would say yes moreso for house than car.

Do any of you cycle?
It would cover you for legal help if you wanted to pursue another motorist.
Sometime you might be able to get this for free from "no win no fee" lawyers but they are of course only interested in the cases that earn them juicy fees.
There are lots of other things it covers like consumer disputes.

*Scarlett

Insurance companies want you to buy their additional products - they often earn more on these than the actual buildings / contents. This is not to say that the legal cover is not worth having. As stated above you can usually use it for various things - contract and employment disputes, personal injury claims, property protection (boundary disputes).

The cost of the claim would usually have to be over a certain amount and they may assess the probability of a successful claim before proceeding.

Some policies offer a free legal advice service but this would not cover the cost of proceeding with a claim.

Shop around when your renewal comes through. If you still want your legal cover, ring any insurers that are competitive and tell them this (but the price is putting you off). I'm sure you will be able to negotiate a discount.

InsideInsurance

Legal expenses insurance on cars is pure profit, in many cases the car insurer is paid by both you the customer and the insurer because it is that profitable!

Legal expenses on home is different because of the cost of the advice line and because many more cases fall in the small track (£5,000 for non-injury) of the court where the ability to claim legal costs from the defendant is exceptionally limited.

You can shop around and see what you can find but family/ home legal protection tends not to vary too much - you used to be able to find free and even MLP that pays you to take it but they excluded anything that fell into small track.