Car insurance legal cover

yr20405

Anyone here think I should get legal cover on my car insurance?

Babbawah

Most 'legal cover' policies attched to motor insewerance are nothing more than a hook to tempt the unwary into becoming a captive customer.

Most only cover you for legal assistance involving no fault incidents.

Hear this, it is THEIR choice whether they decide to offer legal assistance in any given circumstance.

What happens in reality is this, you have a no fault incident, you ring your broker to claim your legal assistance & your broker then SELLS your very lucrative no fault claim against a 3rd party to a claims assistance type company.

OnanTheBarbarian

I declare an interest here as I am involved with a company in this market sector.

Motor legal protection policies generally are a claims capture mechanism for making money from the kickbacks for injury claims and car hire etc.

The reality is the "policy" never gets claimed against (pays out any legal fees) because the cases with merit get passed to the solicitors to deal and those solicitors fees then get paid by the insurance company of the party you are claiming against. Cases without sufficient "prospects of success" won't get dealt with.

Legal cover is no help if you are at fault and legal cover does not assist you if you have a fault accident and the other party sues you. That is what your motor insurance cover is for (to deal with any third party claims against you).

I would say it makes sense to have some form of cover or service in place so that arrangements can be made for you in the event of a non-fault accident, rather than you having to do all the running about.

The risk of not having anything in place is that if you do have a smack and are injured, without any legal cover, you will find no shortage of no win no fee lawyers who could help, but they will deduct upto 25% from your winnings.

Get legal cover, but just don't pay for it.

scotsbob

I think it is wise to have it but not at the price charged by the companies selling the car insurance.


Following advice I got from this forum I go directly to Driver Guardian and it costs me just £15 for as many cars as I am insured to drive.


http://www.driverguardian.co.uk/1-Years-Legal-Protection-Insurance.aspx

EdGasket

I have legal cover included with Admiral but when you have a no-fault claim, they push you off to Albany Assistance, a rubbish claims management company. I could pick any number of claims management companies for free if that is what I want. I expect legal cover to pursue the third party for me, not to try and foist over-expensive hire cars on me and then give up when I dont take one.

vikingaero

When you claim on a legal policy it will most probably be farmed out to a chicken battery farm legal company in Manchester where admin staff deal with thousands of cases overseen by a couple of solicitors.

Your expectations should therefore be low so pay a low price. My Insurer charges £29.99 for legal cover but I bought 2 years worth from here:

http://www.memonline.co.uk/legal.html