Legal cover on car and home policies

Rightmoves

Every year when I renew my home insurance (buildings and contents) and I get to the questions about legal cover i think I probably have that with my car insurance and my legal cover via my union membership at work. I again "bought" it with my home insurance this year but now I am about to renew my car insurance and I have actually checked and I definitely have legal expenses cover via my union membership and my home insurance - but the wording of each is a bit different and i am not sure they are the same thing. Is the one with the motor insurance worth having as well? Their wording makes specific mention of legal cover for motoring issues. Am I overinsured? Does that actually have any implications if I were to ever try and use any of these legal services?

lisyloo

Home and motor policies are usually separate I.e mutually exclusive.
Home policies usually have an exclusions for motoring accidents.
Motor policies don’t usually cover things like consumer or employment disputes.

There isn’t an issue with being over insured apart from spending a little too much.

You need to check the coverage on each in detail.

When you say “motoring issues” it’s not clear what you mean.
If you mean an accident in a motor vehicle then this falls under the motor policy.
If you mean a consumer issue with buying a car or repairs then that would fall under household.
So it’s a case of checking the coverage in detail to see if there’s an overlap between the 3 and I’m afraid “motoring issues” isn’t a sufficient level of detail as that can fall under accident or consumer issues.

I now buy mine standalone.
This is cheaper but mainly it’s incase I have an issue with my issuer (you can’t use an add-on to sue your insurer) and also if for some reason (financial?) I want to pursue a case outside the insurance.

I use memonline who are properly authorised and regulated.
I paid £13 for home and £28 for 4 vehicles.

Examples that have come up here recently in favour of standalone legal policies are:

Home insurer having terrible time with neighbours serious fire claim.
Motor insurer who won’t go to effort of tracing foreign lorry.
Motorist who has failed to declare accident a few years ago to insurer who needs legal advice.
Motorist with minor damage who fears insurer wants car written off so might want to pursue privately.

If you are inclined to save a few ££ by not renewing one of the policies in future you need to check coverage of your union policy in detail. Do you have a proper legal contract with your union or is this merely a membership benefit?

When going standalone I was keen to have a proper legally binding contract with an independent and binding complaintS service (ombudsman). This might not be provided by your union cover. Are they authorised and regulated by the financial conduct authority?

Rightmoves

Thank you for a very thorough reply.

the union cover is a member benefit so I get your point on that,

The motoring issue" I was trying to be brief but basically in the policy documents they describe the sort of things for you might need the legal cover legal cover and on and they list e.g. if you are about to lose your license.

I will look into standalone cover.

Thanks

lisyloo

My main issue with having a proper legal contract started because of the “no win no fee” brigade who are helpful in some circumstance but can cherry pick cases and have no obligation to provide any cover if they don’t want to (which generally means not profitable enough).

If you have a legal contract then they have a legal obligation to provide the service. It’s always subject of course to a > 50% chance of winning (as are all legal cases) but it’s not subject to how profitable the fees are.

As it happens many examples have recentLy come to light where a standalone policy would work better, because a motoring legal add-on can often only be used in connection with a claim and add-ons can not be used to pursue or get legal advice on the insurer to which the add-on corresponds.