I know this has been answered twice but I'd like a definative answer.
Is legal protection worth bothering with.
Presumably if you're in the right you can sue yourself and win costs. If you're in the wrong you can't and if they have no money and no insurance there's no point in going to the law anyway.
Discuss.
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Parp, Parp!
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A complete waste of time and money in my opinion. I 20 years of motoring I've only ever had 1 accident (thankfully) when a moron pulled out on me from a side road. I pursued him via my legal cover to try and recover my policy excess. After many months of letter writing, phone calls, reminders and delaying tactics the so called legal company informed me that he had ccj's and so it wasn't worth going any further. I'd have thought that would have been the first thing they checked !!
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>>Is legal protection worth bothering with.
Do you mean the insurance to cover the costs of recovering our losses after an accident ?
Assuming so, it depends....
First, understand the insurance. In broad terms it will cover the expenses involved in writing to various people (the TP, Insurers, police, etc.) to pursue your uninsured losses. This is typically a rental car and an excess, although clearly it can cover many other expenses.
THe problem is they wil only take somethign to court if the case is watertight. However, usualy in a watertight case with proof/witnesses/etc. the other person pays up. If he doesn't, then he hasn't got any money anyway and isn' worth suing.
The ones where you reall want help, the guy arguing about liability and who won't pay, is exactly the type of case that they will not pursue to court since their chances are not solid enough.
So, don't think you get an army of lawyers on your side ready to pursue to the death, because you won't.
It is essentially administrative support. This can be useful if you are lacking in time to chase something yourself.
It can have a benefit in that they do write official letters and sometimes this alone can cause someone to pay up. However against that is that they just write letters and by the time they realise that they will not get any money willingly given, it can be too late for you to effectively pursue it yourself.
However, if you have got a bit of spare time, a bit of common sense, and the interest to do such things yourself, then I would not recommend the insurance.
As for defending yourself, dont forget that some level of legal defense is almost always included in standard motor insurance, although normally at the insurer's discretion, and therefore typically only in the very big/expensive cases.
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This should go in the FAQ's.
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Parp, Parp!
Note: All Toad posts come with an implied smiley.
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I am pursuing a chap thru the Small Claims Court and he has at least one CCJ against him already, and now he has got another! Get an order, if he doesn't pay, get an enforcement order and if he doesn't pay get the bailiffs in! This fool owes me £X and by messing about and not paying it is going to cost him £2X. Really easy and all costs incurred are down to the chap who owes you the money. 30 minutes for the forms and a 2nd class stamp - easy!
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Good luck with your action A.S. Not wanting to start a new thread on this but my brother had a terrible experience with a so called Alfa Romeo restoration specialist who successfully ruined a sports car my brother had bought as a present for his wife. After having spent almost £10k with this guy he was left with a car which needed several £000's worth of worth done to repair the damage that had been done by the 'specialist'. He won his case hands down in the court and the 'specialist' was ordered to make monthly payments to my brother by way of compensation. After 1 payment, yes you guessed it, he stopped paying. Having consulted his solicitor my brother was advised that proceeding further could cost him more than it was worth since the guy's assets were unknown. Brother put it down to experience and is left with a car which is worth a fraction of what it cost ! Be careful A.S. - you might be throwing good money after bad.
As regards the legal cover issue I think another problem is they may be tempted to handle/settle a case prematurely in order to secure their costs rather than going for the full compensation due to their client. My late wife and I pursued 2 separate litigation claims following accidents (1 car & 1 train) in which she was an innocent victim. In both cases (which lasted several years) the solicitors involved wanted to settle sooner rather than later but since we were paying them we had the right to request them to proceed as we wished. We won both cases and got more compensation than we otherwise would have. I have grave doubts that this would have been the case had we been using a legal protection cover company to manage the claims. s
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>>but since we were paying them we had the right to request them to proceed as we wished.
A very good point.
The "legal" team is on a fixed price. They need to settle it asap. As companies they do not have your best interests in the forefront of their mind. Clearly there are good individuals within the organisations and I wouldn't want to offend them.
Maybe I'll take the time to write out a series of standard letters which can be used in these circumstances, if anybody is interested ?
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Maybe I'll take the time to write out a series of standard letters which can be used in these circumstances, if anybody is interested ?
I think, if you have time, letters & a seires of insurance answers from you on the FAQ's would be a great idea.
Almost everyone I know has Legal Protection Cover - I don't supose they know why they have it. Ditto the different levels of cover. Also the your answer to the question I raised a few months ago about legality of drining to the airport on business with Social Domestic and Pleasure cover. My company actually told me I *was* covered.
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Parp, Parp!
Note: All Toad posts come with an implied smiley.
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>>Also the your answer to the question I raised a few months ago about legality of drining to the airport on business with Social Domestic and Pleasure cover. My company actually told me I *was* covered.
Could you rephrase that ? I really didn't understand.
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>>Also the your answer to the question I raised a few months ago about legality of drining to the airport on business with Social Domestic and Pleasure cover. My company actually told me I *was* covered.
Could you rephrase that ? I really didn't understand.
Holy cow it really is nonsense.
English Translation "A few months ago I drove my private car to the airport on business after checking with my insurance company that my social domestic and pleasure insurance covered the odd trip to the arport for work purposes.
I thought this assurance that I was covered sounded dubious and asked on the Back Room. You explained three levels of cover for buisiness purposes. (Mine was 'travel to a fixed place of work' IIRC)."
V. useful.
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Parp, Parp!
Note: All Toad posts come with an implied smiley.
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A good idea Mark - start 'writing' my friend.
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Everything that has been said about watertight cases and pursuing people with ccj's etc. is true. However, I have uninsured loss recovery legal protection cover, and as a consequence I am several hundred pounds better off from the two occasions I have had to use it. Some insurance companies will take you to the doors of the court before paying up if you follow through on your own. I have found putting my legal expenses insurance on to the case has got me timely settlement with minimum aggravation on my part. The extra cost of this cover on my motor insurance is peanuts and well worth it.
As for protected NCB thats another story....
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I'm insured with a leading company and have been very happy with them for quite a few years. This year my renewal stated that my maximum NCB protection was no longer restricted to 2 claims in 5 years but would remain in place "for life" irrespective of the number of claims. Is this too good to be true ?
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Are you insured with Royal Sun Alliance (morethan.co.uk)? If so, it's true. Although if you get a bad claims record, your premium will go up but that applies whether or not you have NCB protection. I also found that the cost of the protection was much lower than most cos. e.g. Eagle Star (my previous insurers) seem to charge a flat £72 whereas morethan charge a percentage of the premium. Cost me £25 on a £340 premium for a group 15 car. Well worth having at that price.
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Yes I am Keith. So what they've done is to cost out offering certain customers this additional cover and added it into the cost of their premium. I didn't get an offer of this cover at extra cost with my renewal it was built in to the premium which was still lower than I had expected. I'm not complaining though - it just sounds a bit too good if you know what I mean !
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Insurance loading is something fairly new, and it has come about as a result of the policy of offering protected bonus discounts.
In the "old" days, with NCD being disallowed, your premium effectively went up with a claim. However, people felt hard done by if after 20 blameless years they had a single claim and got hit hard.
So, and it was a marketing decision, protected NCD policies were issued. Unfortunately, even though the offering of protected NCd was limited to good driving records, these people still had accidents and cost the insurer money.
They then had a dilemma since the average premium would go up for all and make the company uncompetitive for the good ones, who would go elsewhere.
So, rather than this they decided that they would simply load the premium of the people who had accidents, allowing them to keep the average premium lower and ensuring that they remained competitive for the driver with the claim free history.
At the same time, again for marketing purposes, the insurers were moving away from the idea that you started at 0% NCD and moved to 60% with the increased use of introductory discounts. Again, this was a marketing decision and was intended to allow them to treat valued customers, or older safer people who were taking their first insurance differently to how they treated a 17yr old taking thier first policy.
Regrettably, those people had accidents as well causing them to lose money again. And leaving them in a position where they wanted to recover more money than simply disallowing your bonus and so they needed to load your premium rather than increasing the average premium.
Where this has taken us is to a point where NCD is becoming almost irrelevant. If you have protected NCD and have an accident, then you will get hit with x% loading for your next renewal. If you do not have protected NCD then your x% increase in cost is catered for by loss of part of your NCD.
It doesn't matter whetehr you receive 60% discount, 65% 99% or b***** all.
Only the bottom line matters -
1) what will I actually *pay* ?
2) if I have 1 accident, what will it increase to ?
3) if I add a young driver, change my car, change my cover, what will happen ?
Which discounts are given and of what size is totally irrelevant. The only figure that matters is what you will pay.
I assure you that if you receive a 65% bonus and your mate gets 60%, you will also find that your base premium is £100 and his is £90.
Somewhere on this site I explained how rating works. And what you should consider. If you are interested, it is probably worth searching for. If someone does, perhaps they would also post a link to it in this thread.
Mark.
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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Perhaps our roads aren't getting safer and more crowded.
Otherwise premium income would be going up, claims going down, profits up, and premiums down.
Or am I missing something?
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Surely the extra premium that we pay for NCB protection is an insurance against the risk of making a claim and losing NCB. Therefore, there should be no question of the ins co. losing money on NCB protected policies providing they correctly calculate the extra risk/premium for NCB protection.
Are you saying that, in spite of paying for NCB protection, the premium following a claim would be the same as for someone who decided not to pay the extra for NCB protection? - i.e. your para about x% loading
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>>in spite of paying for NCB protection, the premium following a claim would be the same as for someone who decided not to pay the extra for NCB protection? - i.e. your para about x% loading
It certainly can be. There is some advantage in the protect NCD/load approach since it does leave some discretion and some space to argue, whereas with the loss of bonus there is not.
To know if they were exactly the same one would have to know to identical cases, which I do not.
Hence the reason for the caution - ask what will happen in the event of a claim. Ask if it will have *any* effect on your premium.
M.
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