Home Legal Claim Vets

PoGee

After one of my pets died at the start of 2023,I logged a breach of contract claim in April/May. 3 vets were involved. They did not provide the best care for my pet. My insurer would not allow me to choose my own solicitor. Their selected solicitor said - I'm not a vet, I don't know if there was a breach of contract so the insurer, in June 2023, said they'd pay for an expert report. It's taken the solicitor till this week to collect all medical notes and to request the expert vet report.
I signed consent forms in June - how long do vets have to provide clinical notes?
I'm fed up with the insurer but my insurance is up for renewal in 4 weeks. I want to leave. If I go to another insurer (buildings and contents, with legal), would the original insurer still pay for the expert report? Should I cut my losses, cancel the claim, leave the original insurer and start again with the new insurer? If I did this, would I be liable for the work done so far?

user1977

A new insurer is not going to help you with a claim you already know about.

But it sounds like you might have unrealistic ideas about the timescales for this sort of thing, and that the delay has mostly been in the vet providing the notes? Not sure what that has to do with your insurer, if that's your only reason for switching.

powergen_insider

PoGee said:

 Their selected solicitor said - I'm not a vet, I don't know if there was a breach of contract so the insurer, in June 2023, said they'd pay for an expert report. It's taken the solicitor till this week to collect all medical notes and to request the expert vet report.
I signed consent forms in June - how long do vets have to provide clinical notes?

That's an entirely appropriate response and a short timeline.

I'm working on claims (I do expert reports in my specialist area) from 2019 at the moment.

PoGee

Thanks for replies. My home insurance has increased by £120 from £340 to £460. I guess I need to accept this increase if I want to claim to continue but if I stop the claim (to allow me to change insurer and not restart the claim), will the original insurer still pay the legal fees and expert report fees incurred so far? I've just emailed them to ask but it may take a few days before they contact me . It's always a phone call, never anything in writing when it comes to answers to queries. I want to leave this insurer and so need to start getting quotes in.

powergen_insider

Normally, you can change insurer and still keep the claim going with the one you have left.

Having an open claim doesn't force you to renew.

TELLIT01

I'm also using the insurer's preferred legal people for a potential claim, not vet related.  Once we had completed all the forms we were told somebody would be in touch within 7 working days.  I gave them 3 weeks and called to check on progress.  They said they were still waiting for a response from the 'other side' solicitors.  A further month on and there is still no obvious progress.  It seems the wheels turn exceeding slow.  Much patience is required.

PoGee

powergen_insider said:

Normally, you can change insurer and still keep the claim going with the one you have left.

Having an open claim doesn't force you to renew.

Thank you power_geninsider - do you know if a legal expenses claim is classed as a claim under buildings or contents? I did an online quote (same insurer) including info re  the legal expenses claim and putting down the number of years buildings and contents claim free years, as quoted on my renewal document - the price is less than £300. They said on live chat that I was able to get a quote online regardless of being their customer already.

powergen_insider

PoGee said:

powergen_insider said:

Normally, you can change insurer and still keep the claim going with the one you have left.

Having an open claim doesn't force you to renew.

Thank you power_geninsider - do you know if a legal expenses claim is classed as a claim under buildings or contents? I did an online quote (same insurer) including info re  the legal expenses claim and putting down the number of years buildings and contents claim free years, as quoted on my renewal document - the price is less than £300. They said on live chat that I was able to get a quote online regardless of being their customer already.

Probably best answered by @DullGreyGuy

I know that there are often different prices through different channels though (phone Vs online quote Vs paper renewal etc) so the difference you've found isn't surprising even if your inputs are the same

DullGreyGuy

powergen_insider said:
I'm working on claims (I do expert reports in my specialist area) from 2019 at the moment.

2019? A former client still had 10 claims ongoing from the late 1980s which were registered within days of the original incident! And that's before you consider asbestosis type industrial injuries which go even further back (though the date of claim is more recent)

powergen_insider said:

PoGee said:

powergen_insider said:

Normally, you can change insurer and still keep the claim going with the one you have left.

Having an open claim doesn't force you to renew.

Thank you power_geninsider - do you know if a legal expenses claim is classed as a claim under buildings or contents? I did an online quote (same insurer) including info re  the legal expenses claim and putting down the number of years buildings and contents claim free years, as quoted on my renewal document - the price is less than £300. They said on live chat that I was able to get a quote online regardless of being their customer already.

I know that there are often different prices through different channels though (phone Vs online quote Vs paper renewal etc) so the difference you've found isn't surprising even if your inputs are the same

Renewals, for Home and Motor at least, count as whatever channel you originally bought via as required by the new rules about renewal pricing

PoGee said:

powergen_insider said:

Normally, you can change insurer and still keep the claim going with the one you have left.

Having an open claim doesn't force you to renew.

Thank you power_geninsider - do you know if a legal expenses claim is classed as a claim under buildings or contents? I did an online quote (same insurer) including info re  the legal expenses claim and putting down the number of years buildings and contents claim free years, as quoted on my renewal document - the price is less than £300. They said on live chat that I was able to get a quote online regardless of being their customer already.

Check your renewal notice, does it note the legal claim anywhere? What does it state about claim free years?

Generally no, LE doesn't count as a claim under Buildings or Content (same with Home Emergency). At a minimum its a separate section to either of those and for many policies its a different insurer to the other sections. If you want belts and braces then you can always phone your proposed new insurance provider and double check with them before buying but I've made 2 LE claims and never declared either. 

PoGee

Thank you DullGreyGuy, your explanation has been very helpful and much appreciated. My renewal notice (the one at over £400) makes no mention of the legal expenses claim and gives me the full number of claim free years for both buildings and contents. Using the same info and getting an online quote with the same insurer, the quote is less than £300. I'm thinking of keeping with the same insurer but with the online quote. They said both new customers and existing customers could get online quotes (live chat). 

DullGreyGuy

Yes, I've been a new customer each year with my insurers for a decade, if not longer, other than this year where renewal and new business were the same so just left it to auto renew. 

At some point someone will nail the single customer view and identify existing customers trying to get new business quotes etc but many insurers systems are held together with sellotape and string so its somewhat amazing they manage to generate a quote let alone identify a customer across multiple channels etc