Motor Legal cover?

londonTiger

I'm out of this forum due to constant bullying by forum members

kfw_2

I ALWAYS 100% purchase legal cover, here is my real-life example why: guy and his mates decided to run across the road, I hit one of them, about 20 mph impact. Police attended and deemed it "he hit me" rather than I run him down.
Long story short, guy tried to take me to crown court for his personal injury - he was using one of those no win no fee solicitors. Legal cover meant a solicitor met with me on a few occasions, took my statement and reviewed all police evidence etc etc. Did not not attend court in the end as the claimants solicitors realised they would lose and be wasting time and money.
I had to finally sign off all my paper work with solicitors and insurance company, the legal bill would have been a total of approx £10k due to time, home visit, and court attendance etc.

Rolandtheroadie

kfw wrote: »

I ALWAYS 100% purchase legal cover, here is my real-life example why: guy and his mates decided to run across the road, I hit one of them, about 20 mph impact. Police attended and deemed it "he hit me" rather than I run him down.
Long story short, guy tried to take me to crown court for his personal injury - he was using one of those no win no fee solicitors. Legal cover meant a solicitor met with me on a few occasions, took my statement and reviewed all police evidence etc etc. Did not not attend court in the end as the claimants solicitors realised they would lose and be wasting time and money.
I had to finally sign off all my paper work with solicitors and insurance company, the legal bill would have been a total of approx £10k due to time, home visit, and court attendance etc.

I cant see how your legal cover helped here.


Surely the guy was making a claim against your insurance policy?


Your insurer would have defended it or paid out accordingly.

dacouch

kfw wrote: »

I ALWAYS 100% purchase legal cover, here is my real-life example why: guy and his mates decided to run across the road, I hit one of them, about 20 mph impact. Police attended and deemed it "he hit me" rather than I run him down.
Long story short, guy tried to take me to crown court for his personal injury - he was using one of those no win no fee solicitors. Legal cover meant a solicitor met with me on a few occasions, took my statement and reviewed all police evidence etc etc. Did not not attend court in the end as the claimants solicitors realised they would lose and be wasting time and money.
I had to finally sign off all my paper work with solicitors and insurance company, the legal bill would have been a total of approx £10k due to time, home visit, and court attendance etc.

The legal costs for defending a claim against you are built into all motor policies free of charge.

The legal cover in discussion in this topic is for recovering your uninsured losses when involved in a fault claim

vikingaero

Sooler wrote: »

Not if you get rear ended!

Plenty of dashcams with front and rear cameras in the same unit. And the real car nerds are fitting seperate dashcams to their front and rear screens.

Quentin

dacouch wrote: »

.........The legal cover in discussion in this topic is for recovering your uninsured losses when involved in a fault claim

Unfortunate and significant typo in this (#15)

The sentence should read:

The legal cover in discussion in this topic is for recovering your uninsured losses when involved in a NONE or PARTLY at fault claim

(You cannot recover any uninsured losses off anyone where you have a fault claim)

Chrishazle

I always take the legal cover, and have one instance where it was used. Car park, woman reversed into my car (wife driving, daughter as passenger). Later attempted to claim that wife had driven into her. No other witnesses. I'd already bought and fitted the replacement indicator and fog/driving light units, offered to settle with the woman for the £214 cost of these, no response. OK, it took a year, her insurers did not turn up in court, found in our favour, and we got a cheque for about £600 - loss of use, obtaining and fitting replacements, telephone and postage costs etc! A little work for me, but not a lot, and the legal cover took care of the hassle.

I would not insure without it.

thenudeone

Quentin wrote: »

Legal cover like this only covers items not covered by any other insurance. Ie. uninsured losses. In the example you give your insurers would have chased the third party

Even if your insurers chased the other party for THEIR OWN losses, they won't chase then for YOUR losses, the most obvious of which is the excess you have to pay towards any claim. That's when legal cover comes into its own.

But - by far the cheapest cover comes automatically with memerbship of http://www.csmaclub.co.uk/ (the membership criteria is very wide) and it covers both you + a partner for under £20 pa.

jimjames

Quentin wrote: »

Unfortunate and significant typo in this (#15)

The sentence should read:

The legal cover in discussion in this topic is for recovering your uninsured losses when involved in a NONE or PARTLY at fault claim

(You cannot recover any uninsured losses off anyone where you have a fault claim)

Good point. We've currently got a claim going through for damage to our car. Car was parked and other driver reversed into it cracking the bumper. We had witnesses but other driver didnt stop or potentially didn't realise they done it.

Damage to our car was minor but due to the value of the car I wanted it restored to as it was. Claim was below our excess (£750) so it went through the legal cover and not as a claim on our policy. It's been a hassle to sort out and overall will cost a lot more to the other party with the legal fees added on but it has saved us a lot of grief claiming on our policy and then trying to get our excess back from the other driver.

I'd never really thought it was worthwhile but this has opened my eyes a bit - fortunately on this policy it was added as a freebee.