Insurance claim help?

gt568

Hey guys, please be gentle with me, I have never had any dealings with car insurance before...

Basically my wife was driven into at speed in Dec 13, and injured her pelvis quite badly....the personal injury claim has been going on through Admiral law since then. Today she received a letter that said total costs were estimated to be £4400 of which £2000 were disbursements.

How does this work, do these get paid by the other sides solicitor or do they come out of the settlement? I thought I understood but I'm a bit confused now...:o

MTIA

OnanTheBarbarian

It all depends on what basis they have been instructed under.

Either you have motor legal protection (legal expenses insurance) which should mean that there are no costs to pay as either the other side will pick up the tab, or the legal expenses insurer picks up any unrecoverable costs (cough). So she should not have any legal fees to pay (unless she failed to co-operate or the claim was found to be fraudulent etc.

Or, she instructed them under a no win- no fee arrangement. Even then, she should not be asked to pay her own or opponents costs unless the claim was found to be bent or she failed to co-operate.

With a no win no fee agreement and with legal protection cover, you are liable on paper for your solicitor's costs and disbursements as without you having a liability for any fees, the solicitors would not have a right of recovering them from the other party.

Odds are, the letter received is just giving a running total of where things are.

Best look at the initial paperwork received from the solicitors to see what the basis of the funding of the claim is, or give Admiral Law a call.

gt568

I thought we had legal cover, but looking at the paperwork it appears it is a CCFA, which if I think is like no win no fee...? Is that right?

Quentin

Yes. .

gt568

So why if we have legal cover would she be in a CCFA?

Was she duped into it by Admiral?

OnanTheBarbarian

A CCFA is a Collective Conditional Fee Agreement, which is essentially a no win no fee agreement taken out by either Admiral or a claims management company they have pushed you through on behalf of any punters they send to the panel law firm.

Either they have swerved your legal cover completely - in which case you need to advise Admiral Law you have legal cover which should take care of funding, or the legal cover sold is crap and has exclusions of cover for making personal injury claims, requiring alternative methods of funding to be used.

Under the terms of the CCFA does it say you have to pay a success fee from the awarded damages?

gt568

Couldn't see that bit to be honest. Is that how they generally work, take the fee out of the damages awarded?

OnanTheBarbarian

If it is a Conditional Fee Agreement entered into after 1/4/13 then any "success fee" deductable is limited to 25% of damages (excluding any future losses such as earnings or care costs), but the success fee is deducted from your winnings.

Pre-April 2013 CFA's allow the success fee to be paid by the losing party, which is why the insurers went crying to the government and succeeded in getting lawyers fees slashed and barred recovery of success fees from the losing party, thus making injured parties poorer.