Before the event insurance...

cjones1212

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but basically been in a car accident and seeking personal injury (suffering lower back pain).
received a form asking do I have before the event insurance...not really sure what this means.

Rang insurance company and they have never heard of it.

Can anyone give me advice please?

Thanks a lot x

OnanTheBarbarian

before the event insurance is Legal Protection Insurance/ Motor Legal Protection. The dimwit at the insurance call centre probably did not understand the terminology you used of "before the event", so maybe worth ringing them again and asking if you have legal expenses insurance/ motor legal protection.

I would guess you have either approached a law firm or been directed to a law firm by your insurers. The law firm will be looking to act for you under a no win no fee agreement (NWNF)

With NWNF you will end up losing upto 25% of your compensation to the solicitors, unless you have motor legal protection.

The solicitors have a duty to explore if you have any means of funding your own legal costs through a motor legal protection policy, in order to protect you from losing 25% of your winnings.

If you don't have any motor legal cover on your motor insurance and don't have legal protection cover with your home insurance or any other means of covering legal costs, such as union membership etc, then the solicitors will act for you under the NWNF agreement and deduct up to 25% from your winnings.

cjones1212

Thank you very much for this! It's much appreciated!
The solicitors have sent me three options to choose from and when I explained this to the insurance company I felt like I was talking to a brick wall!

Thank you again for your help!

:j

InsideInsurance

After The Event is insurance that solicitors themselves buy when dealing with cases on a no win no fee type basis. Its name simply refers to the fact that the event, your car accident, happened prior to them buying the insurance. Its a rather specialist product only sold by a modest number of insurers after many got their fingers burnt and is form of commercial insurance.

Those that know about/ deal with ATE therefore call Legal Expenses, Uninsured Loss Recovery or Motor Legal Protection etc Before The Event (BTE) as the cover for the legal expenses was bought prior to your accident happening. Given your average sales person in a personal lines insurer or broker has never heard of ATE they are also unlikely to know BTE either even though its just another name for what they sell.

Insurance as a whole is actually a very complex subject, you can even do degrees and masters in the subject and still wont have a full understanding of all of it. When you have 10,000 call centre agents you arent ever going to invest in training them all in every single aspect of insurance, for a start if you did you could no longer pay them at just above NMW.

OnanTheBarbarian

to the OP, if your accident claim is a straight forward affair with liability admitted by the other side, don't allow the solicitors to take out ATE insurance for you as the costs can be as stupid as £200 and if you are being represented under a no win no fee agreement and liability is not an issue, you do not need protection against paying the legal fees of the other side as the law automatically gives you protection against having to pay your opponent's fees if you lost your case (unless your claim was found to be fraudulent or "fundamentally dishonest")

The premium for the ATE cover is not recoverable from the other side even if you win, so it is just another expense coming out of your compensation.

ATE insurance is only needed if you are going to issue court proceedings, as before then, there is no risk on costs for you.