Legal Cover when renewing car insurance?

[ioweddie]

Legal cover in addition to car insurance is it worth it?
I never protect no claims bonus as its a fiddle the premium will rise anyway and you have to inform any new insurance company, who load the premium anyway, but the legal bit not sure if its worth the £25 odd its priced at.
Anyone got an angle on it.
Thanks Eddie.

 

[Paddcomp]

Never called upon legal service, but before we took it our car was damaged in a hit and run and our insurance wasn't helpful, suggesting we need our own legal representative. We had a witness and details of the other vehicle but all our insurance would do was pay for the repair and load our premium.

Not sure about the protected no claims theory.

 

[190]

I agree with the theory that protected no claims bonus is only partial protection as your premiums are going to go up after an accident regardless. For the same reason I tend to take a voluntary excess as making a claim is going to cost you more in the long term anyway.

I don't take the legal protection as it adds up when you haven't had an accident for 20 years.

I tend to view insurance as a necessary evil and just insure what I have to e.g. house and car. You can insure almost everything else these days but if you put all the premiums in a pot you wouldn't need insurance in the first place. Previous essentials excepted.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Do you have it on the insurance of another car, your home building & contents insurance, or a freebie with something else, eg bank account. If so, then you probably don't need it.

 

[Chrishazle]

I've once had to use the legal cover on our insurance, and it was worth every penny I'd paid over the years. Sily woman reversed into our car (wife driving, daughter as passenger) then tried to claim wife had driven into her. Insurers took over, took a year, and instead of the £214 replacement parts cost I'd offered to settle for, we ended up with a cheque for over £600 when her insurers failed to turn up in court. Little or no hassle for us as, soon as I realised she was playing silly B's, I sent a detailed account to our insurers and the legal cover kicked in.

Personally, I would not be without it!

 

[TheFoX]

Just before Christmas, I was run off the road, hospitalised, and the vehicle was a write off. I was driving my mother's KA under my own third party only part of my own policy.

Because the accident was the fault of the other party, neither my mothers, or my, insurance companies wanted to know. It was at this point that I wished I was a named driver on her policy, and had taken out legal cover.

Ironically, after speaking to several people, we have pursued this claim using a solicitor with a 'no win, no fee' facility. It only cost us £75 each, as long as the probability of winning the case is high. In our case, it was 100% due to eye witnesses and police report, which blamed the other party 100%.

I would imagine that legal cover would prove its worth in a case where the blame is harder to apportion, or where the other party has no insurance so you have to take the party to court directly, rather than their insurer.

One thing you have to remember is that an insurer will go the course of least resistance, so they may tell you that you don't have a case, and try and dismiss a claim. This happened to me once, with an incident unrelated to motoring. Upon talking to a solicitor, he told me I did have a case, and he also told me what to say to the insurance company to get them to cough up, and it worked. They financed my litigation against another party, and I won.

It's a personal choice. Also remember that it doesn't matter how good or safe a driver you are, if the other person is an idiot, you could suffer.

 

[harvin1975]

Hi - I was pondering on the same question.

For the last couple of years I've decided not to take the additional cover for legal advise and instead registered for this: www.freemotorlegal.co.uk instead.

However, as also suggested above you may also be covered elseswhere - bank, work etc.

 

[Alps]

I always take out Legal cover to fight back excess costs etc.

 

[TheFoX]

You also have to remember that insurance premiums are a leach on your expendable income, until you need THAT insurance, then it becomes a lifesaver.

 

[leef44]

I treat the legal cover as another necessary evil. I've been in a case where I was hit from behind and the guilty party tried it on all the way up to court day when he finally admitted liability and decided to pay up. It was painless for me with a solicitor doing all the chasing.

Nowadays so many people try it on and with ambulance chasers as well, that I just feel it is necessary to take out legal cover these days.

 

[Dryce]

I treat the legal cover as another necessary evil. I've been in a case where I was hit from behind and the guilty party tried it on all the way up to court day when he finally admitted liability and decided to pay up. It was painless for me with a solicitor doing all the chasing.

Was the legal cover even necessary for this?

We've had two similar situations that went right up to the point of going to court. On both occasions the insurer didn't want to progress it. But was persuaded otherwise with some firm phone calls and correspondence.

There has been a case reoprted several years ago on these forums where the insured had an issue with their own insurer and found the legal cover didn't give them any means of dealing with it.

 

[Primo]

The primary function of the legal expenses policy is the attempted recovery of your uninsured losses: excess, (or damage if you're not comprehensive), personal injury, alternative transport etc. - anything that the underlying motor insurance policy does not cover. If you are comfortable doing the work yourself then don't buy. If you aren't, and most people prefer that it is done for them, the £20 or so is worth paying.