is it worth it? As i understand it they are meant to pursue your case if some nobber knocks you off your bike - does that mean they basically do the same as any old ‘no win no fee’ cowboys would do for free?
Everytime I hear about insurer legal teams, it seems to be a complaint.
What are peoples experience?
You get what you pay for …
Everyone does it, they compare costs and haggle over quotes and then more often than not opt for the cheapest and then moan about the service.
In my experience insurance companies will chase up on the other party when it’s their money i.e. when they’ve paid out on a claim and are out of pocket. Unless of course your cover extends to the ‘legal eagle’ and ‘personal injury’ bits and bobs.
I have covered this before, so apologies to those who think I am repeating myself.
Legal expenses insurance is one of the biggest cons going.
Many insurers will tell you that LEI is free but the reality is that they will charge you between £15 and £30 on your premium.
If you need to use your LEI, your insurance company will instruct one of their panel solicitors who will work for a reduced fee, hand it to one of their paralegals or legal execs, and vary rarely do you speak to the same fee earner twice.
You often end up with a law firm at the other end of the country, which in itself is not an issue, but because they are working on volume as opposed to providing a quality service you end up joining a conveyor belt and you just become a number.
Most cases dealt with by LEI law firms are often undervalued so that they get a quick settlement and get their fees paid sooner rather than later regardless of whether they win or lose your case.
By going to a solicitor who will represent you on a conditional fee agreement (no win no fee), you get to choose the solicitor or law firm you want.
You are guaranteed to keep 100% of your compensation
You can choose someone local or on a recommendation
Under a CFA, your solicitor will fight your corner because once the risk assessment is done, if they do not win your case, they do not get paid their fees by the third party (or anyone else for that matter) except disbursments.
On the flip side, it is worth considering what LEI is actually going to do for you.
If you have a crash that is your fault, your insurance is going to cover all third party costs, so there is no liklihood of LEI being used
If the crash is not your fault, you can still get legal representation free of charge but with a solicitor of your choice.
As an example both my car and bike policies claim to offer free LEI but on the car in particular when I took it off, it dropped my premium by over £30 and on the bike I saved just over £40
A good friend of mine is a senior claims manager with one of the big insurance firms, and he has told me that insurance companies make millions of pounds additional profit on LEI policies, knowing that they are a waste of space because they pay peanuts and get monkeys and most people drop their LEI solicitors quite quickly and change over to a different firm on a CFA
So, do you really need LEI? I always advise a big No.
Thanks, that’s kind of what I was thinking (except not nearly as thoroughly)
Hmm wait a second, in case of any claims, be it your claim or someone elses aren’t you allowed to pick your own lawyer and they cover the fees? I had the pleasure of having to use them once, I made a claim and used their lawyer of choice and they were complete muppets and pretty much decided to drop my case so I told them I was going with someone else and I did for which they paid and I won my claim too after I went to White Dalton.
If you go fully comp. You#re better of spending the LEI on no claims protection.
I had a accident two weeks ago, slapped straight on conveyour belt with bennets solicitors (only interested in personal injury claims at the end of the day) and some dodgy bike repair company who wanted to “handle” my claim.
My LEI does seemed to of made any difference.
It depends.
There has recently been a couple of court cases where it has been judged that the claimant using LEI should be allowed to use a solicitor of their choice, but the likes of DAS make life very difficult and really slow things up in the hope that you get fed up so that you will give in and use one of their firms (or more to the point the law firm they recently purchased).
Once proceedings have been issued, the LEI’s have no say on who you use, but then by the time proceedings have been issued, most law firms would not want to take the case on anyway.
However, even though they tell you its free, you still pay for LEI, they just lose it in the premium, but once you do a quote without LEI, watch the premium drop.
But, I go back to my original comment, if you are injured through no fault of your own, you can get legal representation under a CFA free of charge, if it is damage only, the insurance companies will deal with it in the main as solicitors cannot claim costs unless the value is over £5,000 and if it is your fault, then your insurance is going to cough up anyway.
I would say have a read around the net but this is a ncie read:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=741279
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=618586&nmt=Car%20insurance%20%27Legal%20Protection%27%20-%20do%20I%20need%20this?
http://www.directline.com/home/flpwelcome.htm
For the £20+ you pay extra I say it is worth not to mention for TPFT people since no one will fight for you if someone does hit you.
What planet are you living on. Every ‘no win no fee’ solicitor will be begging for your business if someone hits you. I’ve had third party only insurance on my learner bikes and have successfully found solicitors to represent me in two separate accidents.
Its a waste of money as even is you do win the ‘no win no fee’ claim, you still don’t pay a fee as it is recovered from the other side.
So what if someone wants to make a claim against you and you are not at fault?
Then it will be unsuccessful. When you call the no win no fee people they have a team of people who assess your case on the phone and tell you whether they will take on the case.
You are better off just throwing that £20 down the toilet.
Even if you are TPFT and someone hits you and you are injured, then you will still be able to get free legal representation in the event that you are injured.
A no win no fee agreement is nothing to do with your insurance as such, as a what is called After the Event policy is taken out on your behalf which protects you against any nasty fees winging in your direction in the event that you lose your case.
Many people believe that they are protected if they have LEI cover, when in fact all you are doing is giving away your hard earnt cash to be dictated to in respect of who is appointed on your behalf, what part of the country the firm instructed is in, and in most cases you will have no one higher than a legal exec or paralegal handling your case, meaning that you simply join the conveyor belt.
Believe me, nearly every day I see cases where a rider has been short changed and left to fend for themselves because of their LEI cover failing to provide someone who can do a professional job for them, often resulting in their case being undervalued and the client having to do much of the running around themselves.
Blimey, this thread is a bit of a boomerang isn’t it?
In the end, the cheapest insurer offered me 3 monthe free legal cover & 3 months free breakdown cover so I took it out and judging by the opinions on here, I’ll probably cancel next month before I start paying for it.
@monkimark - Cancelling the legal cover is the best thing to do. Its also a good idea to spend the cash you’ll save on NCB protection just in case.
But I want to spend it on petrol and ice cream.
