legal cover on car insurance

mycatdave

i never take out legal cover when renewing my car/motorcycle insurance because i think its a waste of money. my wife, however, always does as she wants cover from these `sueing` solicitors, who`s right?

Quentin

It won't help if you get involved with a third party and their solicitors.

Your normal policy provides cover for dealing with any motor incident involving a third party wanting to sue.

forgotmyname

If your the victim and need to claim then a no win no fee company will bite your hand off for your business.

But where the other side refuse to accept liability or even blame you then they may not touch you with many long bargepoles.

Are your pockets deep enough to pay for legal assistance yourself in the hope you get it back eventually?

My mums claim has been going for years now. Finally they have offered a settlement. But what does 2 years + of legal costs amount to i wonder?

I bet its more than the sum she got. £6500.

BertTheRaccoon

These policies cover you for your own costs of taking an action against the third party at fault for an accident. They do not cover you for costs a third party incurs suing you. This is what your own motor policy is for.

The value of these policies are highly debateable in my opinion.

InsideInsurance

Their use is mainly for smaller accidents with no injury where no win no fee will not get involved because they cannot add on their fees.

If being able to hand over claiming back up to £5k of non-injury uninsured loss to a law firm -v- managing the claim yourself is worth the cost of the add on is a personal choice

phill99

I have it and have used it twice in the last five years when involved in non fault accidents.

The £25 or so it costs me each year is worth 100 times that when it is called upon.

Buzby

Have to say the money is better in my pocket than theirs. Normally called ULR (Uninsured Loss Recovery) it supposedly pursues the party causing the accident for your uninsured losses.

Not only are there a great many firms out there able to act on your instructions without any prepayment, it costs nothing for you to pursue your own SC action (apart from court filing costs) should you wish.

If you like throwing money away for a service you can get/do at no cost, then fine. But over 20 years and three pursuits, I've won each time and never paid anyone a penny.

BertTheRaccoon

If the insurers get their way with the government (they usually do) the small claims limit could be on the way up very shortly, so these policies could have their value in time to come.

The PI industry is already being crippled and law firms are going out of business daily now, so your high st no win-no fee solicitor will soon be a thing of the past and you'll only have the "teenagers with headsets" do deal with your personal injury claim soon. By the way, the law firm that is then appointed to deal with your claim will be owned by your insurer, still milking in the money and not reducing anyone's premiums like they promised.

Sorry, did I go off on a rant there :rotfl:
:mad::mad:

InsideInsurance

BertTheRaccoon wrote: »

so your high st no win-no fee solicitor will soon be a thing of the past and you'll only have the "teenagers with headsets" do deal with your personal injury claim soon.

Same as your traditional high street broker -v- your call centre based broker/ direct insurer.

I dont think it is insurers that are killing off high street PI solicitors. The reality is that most people don't walk into their local solicitors after tripping and breaking their arm but instead approach the national firms and/ or the claims management firms that resell the details on to the nationals.

Solicitors like anyone else is ultimately a commercial enterprise that must meet a customers needs and move with the times. Most people like the increasing convenience of being able to deal with the things on the phone and by email and not only 9-5/ mon-fri when the solicitor happens to be in.

You may not like para-legals, with or without their headphones, but many who have done the job for a few years with a couple of hundred cases a year doing nothing but PI claims probably are better at it than the qualified solicitor that deals with only deals with one or two a year.

I did try to use a local solicitor on a recent case, it took over a week to simply get to speak to the guy on the phone and we abandoned the attempt totally when we were talking over 6 weeks until he could arrange a mutually convenient time to discuss the case (which he insisted needed to be face to face)

Yorkie1

BertTheRaccoon wrote: »

If the insurers get their way with the government (they usually do) the small claims limit could be on the way up very shortly, so these policies could have their value in time to come.

The PI industry is already being crippled and law firms are going out of business daily now, so your high st no win-no fee solicitor will soon be a thing of the past and you'll only have the "teenagers with headsets" do deal with your personal injury claim soon. By the way, the law firm that is then appointed to deal with your claim will be owned by your insurer, still milking in the money and not reducing anyone's premiums like they promised.

Sorry, did I go off on a rant there :rotfl:
:mad::mad:

The fees recoverable are going down, after the Government consulted with insurers on what the fees should be - but not those representing victims.

And the small claims limit is indeed going up, in which legal fees won't be recoverable anyway.

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/high-court-throws-out-rta-fees-cut-challenge

BertTheRaccoon

InsideInsurance wrote: »

I dont think it is insurers that are killing off high street PI solicitors.

Insurers are killing off any solicitors they don't own. That's the agenda and they are succeeding.

The new costs reforms coming into effect from 1st April make it virtually impossible for an independent firm to market themselves. Referral fees are banned. Only the factory firms will survive long term or the ones that insurers own.

The result being that if you have a claim with a liability dispute or any other complexity, god help you.

This is a tongue in cheek response from a lawyer at government proposals and is very funny, whilst at the same time being scary as the realisation that it is ultimately the wet dreams of many insurers and ultimately achievable due to the goons in government seemingly doing whatever the insurers ask them.

"Ministry of Justice - Government Press Release

Justice finally brought to taxpayers and consumers.

Justice Minister Helen Grant today announced a raft of measures aimed at bringing justice to the hard-pressed taxpayer, fairness to motorists and consumers, lower insurance premiums, jelly, ice cream, apple pie, Wagner, Cricket and Warm Beer [is this right, ed.?]

According to highly technical research carried out by a university, that is far too technical for oiks to understand, some insurance companies pay out money to injured people. Helen Grant said "my department have confirmed that there have been cases where an insurance company was ordered by a court to pay a sum of money called "compensation" to injured people. Even more shockingly, we have uncovered evidence that the NHS has to pay out this "compensation" when their medical professionals are negligent."

Helen continued, "Clearly this has got to stop. Some of these people who receive this compensation are apparently common, and come from ugly little council estates. Not only that, but I am told that this costs the insurance industry "lots of pounds"."

The Government have therefore announced changes "common people have an alternative. With the price of horse meat at an all time low, these people have much more money to spend on things like White Diamond Cider and Special Brew. I believe lots of them do things like watch a game called 'football' on the television, and we wish to encourage that."

"Therefore we will tighten up the system. A panel of independent people who use to work for insurance companies, will be appointed using a web portal, operated by CompareTheMarket.com. These people, to be known as "judges", will decide whether a claim is fraudulent, exaggerated, or false. Individual insurers will be able to bid for which "Judge" will decide their case, and have access to their past record. All claimants will be required to be examined by a truly independent medical examiner, from an approved panel. The doctors, all employees of Capita, are based in Moscow (for claimants with surnames A-Q), St. Petersburg (claimants with surnames R-Z) and Birmingham (for all others)"

My question to anybody with a brain cell and, I ask other people to get off their soap boxes and forget about the "all this compensation is putting up my insurance premiums" Daily Mail brainwash.... Fixed costs for a lawyer dealing with a RTA claim upto a limit of £25k will be £800.00 a £25k claim is a serious injury claim and cannot be competently handled for £800 and either corners have to be cut, the client has to agree to a damages based agreement (agree to a cut of their compo to pay towards lawyers costs) or Legal Expenses Insurers have to start actually giving a genuine indemnity on legal fees instead of just acting as claims capture mechanisms and the general champertous nature of their being.