What do I need - Insurance

MyRealNameToo

Beeblebr0x said:

angrycrow said:

I would always recommend taking legal cover. In the unlikely event of a serious non fault claim it stops the solicitor taking 25% of your damages. Normally adds around £15 to £20 to premium.

In all the years I've been a home owner and driver, I've never had legal cover. Now you're making me feel I'm making a mistake in not having it. Out of interest, how many others here buy legal cover?

Its very high level of uptake on Motor and a significant proportion of Home but not in the 80%+ range that Motor is. The two are very different products though:

1) Motor - recovers your uninsured losses after an accident that isnt 100% your fault. So your car insurer will deal with the damage to your car (assuming you have comprehensive insurance) but you may have injuries, your excess, a damaged laptop or mobile that was in the car at the time, loss of earnings if you have to take time off work etc. These are the sorts of things Motor LE will help you get back

2) Home - generally includes a helpline to give basic legal advice on pretty much any legal matter. For actual claims they will typically cover things like personal injury outside of an RTC, employment issues, property issues and consumer issues. So if you have builders round, you pay them by bank transfer and then discovered they messed up the foundations so the whole thing needs redoing then the LE cover would appoint a law firm to pursue the builders for you. 


Like anything its a risk appetite thing, for injuries you could always use a no win, no fee solicitor but they can retain up to 25% of your award. Your less likely to be able to find conditional funding on non-injury cases and especially on something thats less than £5k in damages 

twopenny said:

So, I have a small Hyundi classic, rural driving, circumstances mean that I stay local ie no more than an hours leisurely (I hope) drive.

I've had a quote better than the renewal but it depends on how much I need.

Included :-

Windscreen cover

Uninsured driver promise

Courtesy car while your car is repaired by an approved repairer

24 hour claim helpline

Policyholder can drive other cars (Third party cover only, terms and conditions apply)

Personal accident cover

It says Courtesy car while repair - but then offers something about car hire.

Do I need Legal Cover? Only once in 45yrs and it wasn't able to help. I do it for house but not sure what this can offer.

Motor Accident? Loss of limbs etc. As a retiree not sure that I would get anything anyway. Or would I? It's usually dependent of earnings and care. But it does say Personal Accident cover included.

Accidental and malicious damage compulsory excess (approved repairer) - Not sure what this means (malicious obvious) but I live in a quiet community.

I'd be grateful for your help, explanations. I can't face talking to a bot.

Glass - enables a claim for glass damage, generally with a lower excess and not impacting your NCD. Some also cover minor paint damage caused by the glass braking. You can see how much your windscreen would cost to replace and compare it to the £50 - £100 excess. 

Uninsured Driver - traditionally in any claim you pay your excess and if it's not your fault your insurer tries to recover their money from the third party. If they manage to then its non-fault and NCD isnt impacted. If they dont for any reason then it's a fault accident and the NCD is impacted. Those without insurance often dont have the funds to reimburse then insurer so it ends up being a fault claim even though they hit your parked and unattended vehicle. These "Promises" vary between insurers but often are around waiving your excess and/or not reducing your NCD if it turns out the third party is uninsured. 

Courtesy car - garage gives you a corsa if they have one spare. No guarantee you will get one and no courtesy car if yours is beyond economical repair or stolen and not recovered. Many now offer the option of a hire car as an upgrade which often is a bigger car and will be provided in all cases whilst yours is undrivable or in for repairs but there is often a time cap so if parts are on backorder it may not be sufficient

DoC - used to be standard if you meet the criteria (normally age and length of time license held) but more insurers are removing it

PA - used to be standard, it's a modest lump sum payout for loss of limb, eye etc irrespective of fault. Some have now removed it or reduced it further and offer it as an optional extra. Its not dependent on anything, you lose an eye its £12,500, lose both eyes in an accident its £25,000. If it was a non-fault accident you'd make further claims for your injuries from the third party. 


Excess - you pay a contribution to all own vehicle damages, most will refer to the section as accidental damage but as pointed out it also covers vandalism etc. Some insurers charge one excess if you use their preferred garage and charge an additional excess if you want to use a garage that isnt part of their network. The fact this mentioned approved repairer points to there likely being a larger excess for other repairers. 


Most of these things are not optional so no point considering it, you'd be a little unorthodox if you were willing to pay more premium to avoid having glass cover or PA. Generally get quotes, then look at coverages and consider adding on any of the features you feel you need. Dont spend time hunting for policies without features which you'll probably end up paying more for unless you have an exceptional reason to do so. 

twopenny

Thank you so much everyone for detailing everything for me.
I understand a lot more now and how to make a choice.
I've been around a long time and used to be good at it but things change and it becomes a bit of a confusion.

It's a 10yr old car but think I can see what's happened. I changed cars half way through the policy, had to pay more because I was in a rush and they've added an increase to that as well.
Anyhoos, I'll see what I can make of it 🙂

Sorry I didn't come back earlier. I seem to not get alerts for this forum for some reason.

greyteam1959

Don't forget that legal cover for home and motor can be bought cheaper as stand alone insurance rather than from your motor or home insurance company.

MyRealNameToo

greyteam1959 said:

Don't forget that legal cover for home and motor can be bought cheaper as stand alone insurance rather than from your motor or home insurance company.

Though make sure you read the policy books properly, many standalone policies won't respond to small track cases and some arent a policy at all but simply a accident management company getting you to sign up even before the accident happened. 

twopenny

Oh. Something else I thought I knew about and more tnc to read😵‍💫

It seems to be 6mts work just getting the everyday things where once you just walked into a shop and they did it all for you and apologies if they were wrong.

MyRealNameToo

twopenny said:

Oh. Something else I thought I knew about and more tnc to read😵‍💫

It seems to be 6mts work just getting the everyday things where once you just walked into a shop and they did it all for you and apologies if they were wrong.

Sale of insurance is divided into advised and non-advised... it's the sales process not the product that determines it. 

On an advised sale they have to gather your demands and needs and then recommend products to you, they have to document the whole thing and justify why the recommended what they did and commissions obviously can't be a reason

On a non-advised sale they simply present the information to you and it's up to you to decide which one best meets your needs. It would be a regulatory breach if they recommended or advised you in anyway. 

On advised sales training is much higher, record keeping higher and more time consuming, people need knowledge of your own products and the wider market. You have a liability if you sell the wrong type of product to the customer. 

Nonadvised sales require much less training, you only need to record the pricing based questions and answers, your staff can be totally ignorant of anything outside of your company. Needless to say they are paid a lot less and can do many more quotes a day. Plus when the customer comes to complain that the policy doesnt cover XYZ then its the customers fault for not checking rather than the sellers fault for not knowing that was important to them. 

Given most customers will go from a household name insurer to some never heard of intermediary selling on behalf of an offshore insurer to save less than £5 a year its fairly obvious why most companies do non-advised sales given the additional costs it incurs them to do advised.