Car Insurance Legal protection - waste of money???

chumbawumba_2

Hiya,

The last few times I have renewed my car insurance I have wondered whether the legal protection and personal accident cover options are a waste of money? If you need them why do the insurers present them as a tick box option?

I have two cars myself so am paying out for these things twice over every year, in addition to my boyfriend paying for them for his car too. So I reckon we pay around £80plus combined each year.

Does anyone know if you can take out a separate personal insurance that covers you for these things, which I imagine would be a lot cheaper???

Any ideas?????

ta

CW

dunstonh

I would say it is important to have. If you have an accident and dont have legal expenses cover you will have to appoint your own solicitor or do all the work yourself to recover your excess, no claims discount and out of pocket expenses.

marcellep

I would never take a policy without it unless you know you will be able to afford legal advice.

chumbawumba_2

no, don't worry, I wasn't thinking of not having any cover - just wondering if you can take out a personal legal cover elsewhere, so you dont have to go through the car insurers for it?

Janusian

You don't have to take out the one with the insurance, but I am not sure how much you would save elsewhere.

You mentioned Personal Accident as well. You may well have oodles of cover for this sort of thing elsewhere (Life, PHI etc - maybe with your employer) so it may be worth ditching that - especially as the benefits aren't usually that meaningful

mattymoo

There are firms that sell family based legal expenses policies. They are a bit of an oddity though. The premiums, last time I checked (around 5 years ago), were around the £200 per annum mark.

They charge a high price for a standalone policy because the type of persons that buys it either has litigation in mind or is of a litigious nature (threatens to sue everyone that ever crosses them). As a result, the payouts on these policies were pretty high in comparison to premium earned.

The bolt on legal expenses policy is a different beast. People take it to be on the safe side but only a small percentage end up using it.

It is worthwhile having though. I spent 7 years handling claims for a major insurer and reckon I could represent myself in most straightforward cases. However, some of the threads on this board show that people are quite prepared to lie / deny everything in a bid to save their precious NCD. In those situations I would be quite relieved to know I had some legal clout behind me.

lisyloo

Next time you get a quote you could try

https://www.ecarinsurance.co.uk

Their policies include breakdown (recovery) and legal protection.

Obviously you need to check the price in individual cases as there's no point getting it "free" if the quote is horrendous.

I have no connection but I use their sister company ebikeinsurance and so do many of my biker mates as they are very competitive.

Sponge

After a long dicussion with a Solicitor friend of mine, he convinced me it was a waste of money and only limited my options in the event of a claim, so I don't pay for it.

Now if it's free, that's a different story...

BrightonBoy_2

Sponge wrote: »

After a long dicussion with a Solicitor friend of mine, he convinced me it was a waste of money and only limited my options in the event of a claim, so I don't pay for it.

Presumably because as a solicitor he would prefer that you had to go direct to him and pay the going rate for his services rather than using the solicitor firm employed by your insurer which they will pay for. Hmmmmm