Legal Costs Insurance...?

C_Mababejive

Hello...

I am looking for some kind of legal expenses insurance.

What i want is to pay a premium and in return, i want to be able to engage the services of a legal practitioner to initiate actions in potentially winnable cases eg where compensation might be due/road accidents/injury and also on issues of employment law eg tort/employment issues etc.

I dont particularly want to pay a trade union

Thanks

forgotmyname

Just ring any no win no fee company. If they thinks its genuine they will do it for free.
Some will even pay you.

Crazy_Jamie

forgotmyname wrote: »

Just ring any no win no fee company. If they thinks its genuine they will do it for free.
Some will even pay you.

Though Conditional Fee Agreements are not used in the area of employment law because the general rule in civil litigation that the losing side pays the winning side's costs does not apply in employment litigation. So whilst your advice works fine for personal injury actions, it doesn't work for employment actions, which the OP specifies as one of the examples. If you cannot pay privately for a solicitor in an employment law case, the most common form of funding would be a Contingency Fee Agreement, which results in your solicitor and/or barrister taking a percentage of damages that you are awarded. If both a solicitor and barrister are instructed on your behalf, it is not uncommon for around 50% of your damages to go on legal fees. So certainly in the area of employment law have a BTE policy for legal expenses can be very useful.

InsideInsurance

Depending on how many vehicles and properties you have it is typically cheaper to buy LE cover attached to these than trying to get a single stand alone policy.

The cheaper ones that people have posted recently have all excluded small track cases. For injury this is ok (sub £1k) but for non injury the small track limit is much higher and so can be more of an issue (£5k from memory)

Crazy_Jamie

InsideInsurance wrote: »

The cheaper ones that people have posted recently have all excluded small track cases. For injury this is ok (sub £1k) but for non injury the small track limit is much higher and so can be more of an issue (£5k from memory)

Your memory is correct. It is also worth bearing in mind that the Jackson Reforms come into effect in April next year, which will bring in wholesale changes to various areas of civil litigation. These will include abolishing CFAs and potentially raising the small claims limit further. Chances are this will cause knock on changes in the area of legal expenses insurance, with those policies in general suddenly becoming much more appealing to the average person.

C_Mababejive

Thanks all..so is there a stand alone product or should i just be tagging it onto home insurance? Does home insurance legal assistance actually litigate or are they just some lame phone help line?

InsideInsurance

You would need to tag on to both home and motor as they are mutually exclusive.

They will litigate if they feel there is reasonable prospects of success (51% is the FOS yard stick) and the claim meets the minimum threashold - from memory my policy has a £100 minimum

There are standalone products but all the ones I've seen either (a) are very expensive compared to tagging them on to home and motor or (b) exclude small track cases which basically means you're close to being in the same situation as using no win, no fee solicitors