rehttp://www.memonline.co.uk/legal.html -

divers12

joe134 wrote: »

Hi Guys, I,ve always taken out Legal expenses insurance, with my car insurance, my daughter asked me about it, as she came across this company charging £7.50 pa, instead of £26 upwards, but it,s a no win no fee company. I wouldn,t use them, unless someone has recommened them..
Has anyone come across them or is there other companies that do legal cover cheaper than insurance companies.?
Advice appreciated.

I worked in the Insurance Industry for over 30 years and am now retired. I think that Legal Protection is good value at maybe £10 to £15...but £30 to £40 is nonesense.
My only advice, for what it's worth, is to shop around and only purchase from an FSA registered business, then you have no worry about them going out of business and you have the FSA to complain to if your'e not properly treated.
What you need to avoid is Companies such as Aspire Legal Assist that have a good looking site, making them look like an FSA business, but if you look at it closely they are nothing more than a no win no fee set up which you can get free quite easily.
They are probably a tiny business, one man band, selling very cheap, then making up to a £1,000 a time passing on personal injury claims to Solicitors. These are the type of Company you need to avoid at all costs as when the Law changes in April they will not be able to get the fat fees from Solicitors and could well be struggling to continue. If you buy only from FSA registered companies you wont go far wrong. They only sell Insurance Policies which are Guaranteed to last the full period you have paid for.

BertTheRaccoon

But why do you need legal protection INSURANCE?

Either your claim has prospects or it doesn't.

divers12

BertTheRaccoon wrote: »

But why do you need legal protection INSURANCE?

Either your claim has prospects or it doesn't.

Exactly, If you have time on your hands, are used to Office type work you can do it yourself. Otherwise find a site that offers Legal Protection at a reasonable cost, they will then do all the letter writing and phone calls etc.
It is vital that you are able to prove that you are the innocent party in any claim, otherwise it doesnt matter who handles it for you. If someone goes into the back of you its usually easy to show blame, otherwise you need witnesses, take pictures with your phone of stop or give way signs etc.
Trouble is most people are in a bit of a state after even a minor accident and find it dificult to think straight. Advice from a decent Legal Protection Company can be useful, but if you feel confidant do it yourself, it's not a problem if youre an office type person, but it can be time consuming.

BertTheRaccoon

I'm not suggesting folk should start having to do all of this for themselves. What I am saying is that there is no need to have BTE cover to get looked after following an accident that was not your fault.

Trouble is, I can't give names of companies otherwise I get hosed down for promoting my own interests.

divers12

BertTheRaccoon wrote: »

I have a biased slant on this, but I can't really see what the issue is with using a NWNF outfit for an accident instead of ending up in the clutches of a factory firm appointed by your LEI providers.

Legal Expenses Insurers never provide a proper indemnity on their policies anyway and the law firm they shove you onto are never allowed to claim any costs from the policy.

Until people realise they don't need to be mugged for £20-£40 for this cover, the insurance industry will be happy to keep on flogging people this cover or sneaking it in at renewal when you asked for it to be removed at the point of new business.

I agree, £20 to £40 is far to much, but it is possible to find proper cover for half that price. A lot of people are perfectly capable of handling the claim themselves, the main problem arises if you have personal injury to claim for, if you need to take it to court you can face major headaches. I would rather my claim be handled by decent Solicitors, no win no fee solicitors have already handed out upto £1000 in fees to buy your claim, therefore there charges against the thired party are at a loss until they hit the £1000 mark. They will ask you to sign a form to say you may have to make a payment if the claim fails. I would avoid these people and look for the best deal buying a Legal protection insurance policy, which has guarantees.

BertTheRaccoon

There is no more danger instructing a solicitor under a NWNF than being backed under a LEi policy.

15 years ago, maybe there was some risk of the solicitor dipping into your winnings under a contingency fee agreement, but I know not of any lawyers who take a cut of the winnings under a NWNF.

A solicitor paying a referral fee is no different to a solicitor paying to market themselves through adverts, sponsorship, paying upfront fees to a client etc.

The types of firms that are instructed under a LEI policy are factory firms, who are paying £1000 referral fees to major insurers. These are the places you need to avoid, not the local high st firm acting under a NWNF. The factory firms are the ones with shoddy service and under-settled claims as they need to kill the claim off ASAP to get their referral fee back. They rely on sheer volume to make any money.

One such law firm I can think of handle circa 60K personal injury claims a year, have a turnover over of £100m and made a profit of only £2m. Madness. The poor souls that work there are just process monkeys with targets all over the place, largely geared around how quickly they can get shot of the claim.

On non-disputed RTA PI claims, the costs are fixed at £1250 + CFA uplift of 12.5%. So the margins are small when you are daft enough to pay £1000 for the claim from the insurer/broker.

The only time i would ever pursue a client for costs when acting for them under a NWNF agreement is when there has been "misconduct" by the client, i.e. the claim is found to be fraudulent or exaggerated or if the client decides to instruct me to pursue the claim and then messes about and decides they can't be bothered any more after I've had them medically examined and incurred other disbursements. The same penalties would apply to a client under a LEI policy. The LEI insurer ain't going to pay the solicitor's costs when the above scenario applies, so the solicitor would still pursue the client.

A legal protection policy is nothing other than a claims capture mechanism for your insurer or broker. The policies are never claimed against and the solicitor on the panel generally has to agree never to claim off the policy before they get referred any work.

Legal protection policies are often given free to brokers to sell. Why can the underwriter/ cover holder agree to do this? Because the policy is a sham. All anyone selling a LEI policy is bothered about is getting non-fault PI claims reported to them.

The landscape will change in April. It will become worse for the consumer.

Insurers will either own or have a financial interest in law firms, so they will just pump PI claims into firms they own instead of getting a referral fee from a firm they don't own.

Independence of the law firms will suffer. Imagine a direct line policyholder using their panel firm needing to sue say a Churchill policyholder?

Watch this space as they say

real1314

divers12 wrote: »

I agree, £20 to £40 is far to much, but it is possible to find proper cover for half that price. A lot of people are perfectly capable of handling the claim themselves, the main problem arises if you have personal injury to claim for, if you need to take it to court you can face major headaches. I would rather my claim be handled by decent Solicitors, no win no fee solicitors have already handed out upto £1000 in fees to buy your claim, therefore there charges against the thired party are at a loss until they hit the £1000 mark. They will ask you to sign a form to say you may have to make a payment if the claim fails. I would avoid these people and look for the best deal buying a Legal protection insurance policy, which has guarantees.

You do know that it is an offence to pose as an unconnected party whilst promoting a service provider don't you?

Fraud by mis-representation. :cool:

dacouch

real1314 wrote: »

You do know that it is an offence to pose as an unconnected party whilst promoting a service provider don't you?

Fraud by mis-representation. :cool:

Or

"18. A wolf in sheep’s clothing
Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the
trader is not acting for purposes relating to his/her trade,
business, craft or profession, or falsely representing
oneself as a consumer."

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/cpregs/oft979.pdf

divers12

BertTheRaccoon wrote: »

There is no more danger instructing a solicitor under a NWNF than being backed under a LEi policy.

15 years ago, maybe there was some risk of the solicitor dipping into your winnings under a contingency fee agreement, but I know not of any lawyers who take a cut of the winnings under a NWNF.

A solicitor paying a referral fee is no different to a solicitor paying to market themselves through adverts, sponsorship, paying upfront fees to a client etc.

The types of firms that are instructed under a LEI policy are factory firms, who are paying £1000 referral fees to major insurers. These are the places you need to avoid, not the local high st firm acting under a NWNF. The factory firms are the ones with shoddy service and under-settled claims as they need to kill the claim off ASAP to get their referral fee back. They rely on sheer volume to make any money.

One such law firm I can think of handle circa 60K personal injury claims a year, have a turnover over of £100m and made a profit of only £2m. Madness. The poor souls that work there are just process monkeys with targets all over the place, largely geared around how quickly they can get shot of the claim.

On non-disputed RTA PI claims, the costs are fixed at £1250 + CFA uplift of 12.5%. So the margins are small when you are daft enough to pay £1000 for the claim from the insurer/broker.

The only time i would ever pursue a client for costs when acting for them under a NWNF agreement is when there has been "misconduct" by the client, i.e. the claim is found to be fraudulent or exaggerated or if the client decides to instruct me to pursue the claim and then messes about and decides they can't be bothered any more after I've had them medically examined and incurred other disbursements. The same penalties would apply to a client under a LEI policy. The LEI insurer ain't going to pay the solicitor's costs when the above scenario applies, so the solicitor would still pursue the client.

A legal protection policy is nothing other than a claims capture mechanism for your insurer or broker. The policies are never claimed against and the solicitor on the panel generally has to agree never to claim off the policy before they get referred any work.

Legal protection policies are often given free to brokers to sell. Why can the underwriter/ cover holder agree to do this? Because the policy is a sham. All anyone selling a LEI policy is bothered about is getting non-fault PI claims reported to them.

The landscape will change in April. It will become worse for the consumer.

Insurers will either own or have a financial interest in law firms, so they will just pump PI claims into firms they own instead of getting a referral fee from a firm they don't own.

Independence of the law firms will suffer. Imagine a direct line policyholder using their panel firm needing to sue say a Churchill policyholder?

Watch this space as they say

Only a small percentage of claims are personal injury, most involve recovering policy excess, and other smaller amount claims. High street firms would not be interested in persuing such small claims, they are only interested in juicy fat personal injury claims, involving very expensive hire car claims. Any proper Legal Protection Policy should recover your policy excess etc. I'm well over 60 and have never met a poor Solicitor, the only solicitors I see are money grabbers that would defend the devil if there was enough money in it. No win no fee Solicitors have been the main drivers of outrageous fees being paid not only to Insurance Firms but Police Forces, Ambulance Services, Trade Unions etc etc. Ever wondered how you get calls from claims firms before you've repoted the claim to your Insurer, it's the police passing your details on, without your authority and getting money for it. Insurance Companies have made many millions from Solicitor kick backs in particular Admiral and Direct Line Group. The whole practice needed revising and the new law will rein in Solicitor fees and kickbacks will be stopped. A very high percentage of politicians are Solicitors and that tells you all you need to know. How many Solicitors do you know that shop at Aldi, not a one I bet. The main culprit in this whole scenario are Solicitors and their high fees, tied, high street or whatever.

BethanyD

Interestingly the law is changing because of money grabbing solicitors and claims companies - they will get less but we will have to pay more (not always) from our compensation award

The new legislation comes in in April so if you do want to make a claim do it before then

divers12 wrote: »

Only a small percentage of claims are personal injury, most involve recovering policy excess, and other smaller amount claims. High street firms would not be interested in persuing such small claims, they are only interested in juicy fat personal injury claims, involving very expensive hire car claims. Any proper Legal Protection Policy should recover your policy excess etc. I'm well over 60 and have never met a poor Solicitor, the only solicitors I see are money grabbers that would defend the devil if there was enough money in it. No win no fee Solicitors have been the main drivers of outrageous fees being paid not only to Insurance Firms but Police Forces, Ambulance Services, Trade Unions etc etc. Ever wondered how you get calls from claims firms before you've repoted the claim to your Insurer, it's the police passing your details on, without your authority and getting money for it. Insurance Companies have made many millions from Solicitor kick backs in particular Admiral and Direct Line Group. The whole practice needed revising and the new law will rein in Solicitor fees and kickbacks will be stopped. A very high percentage of politicians are Solicitors and that tells you all you need to know. How many Solicitors do you know that shop at Aldi, not a one I bet. The main culprit in this whole scenario are Solicitors and their high fees, tied, high street or whatever.