Cycling Accidents: More information

Are you covered? Before the Event Legal Expenses Insurance

Tucked away in a drawer somewhere you may have the insurance equivalent of an inflatable life jacket.  It is the sort of insurance you would like to think you are never going to need but if you have it in times of a legal crisis, it could keep you afloat in the white waters of litigation.

Legal Expenses Insurance is often part of the Home Insurance Policy (either included in the premium or paid for as an added extra).  Legal Expenses Insurance (LEI) will allow you to obtain formal legal advice and, if necessary, start Court action.  Typically you will find cover for personal injury/clinical negligence and employment related matters but other areas may be specifically excluded (such as neighbourhood disputes and family law).  Insurance premiums can vary widely in their terms but generally most policies allow you to spend between £25,000 to £50,000 on any one legal action.

Paying for Court proceedings can be costly, particularly if you consider the cost of taking the case to trial.  The Legal Expenses life jacket will ensure that the burden of paying the fees for Barristers, medical experts and Court fees will not weigh you down.

The quality of insurance varies widely as does the service you may receive from Insurance Companies.

We have found that some policies far from being the life jacket of the insurance world end up being a lead weight.

For example, in personal injury and clinical negligence matters specifically, our clients have encountered the following problems:

• One Insurance Company claimed that the policyholder had to obtain her own medical report before agreeing to fund the claim.  In clinical negligence cases, getting to that stage of an initial investigation will easily cost over £3,000.  We successfully argued on behalf of our client that this was not a fair interpretation of the insurance clause.  Whilst ultimately a successful outcome for our client, the argument was time consuming and was an additional burden for the person the Insurance Company was supposed to be helping.
• Another leading Insurance Company within the Legal Expenses Insurance market regularly seeks to exclude claims on the basis that the injury suffered is not a “specific or sudden event”.  This is often argued where there has been a delay in diagnosis of cancer for instance.
• Many Insurance Companies also try to limit your choice of solicitor to one of their panel solicitors so that they can sell your claim on to them.  They regularly do this even though the Financial Services Ombudsman has decided that in complex and high value claims it is only fitting that an injured person should have the freedom to choose their own solicitor.  We believe that this is particularly important where someone has already explained the very sensitive nature of their injury.
• The financial limits may not be sufficient to take a case to trial and accordingly the Legal Expenses may require some “top up” cover at an additional cost.

In contrast to these “problem insurance policies” there are several Companies that stand out as offering excellent service and generally allow individuals to have the peace of mind that they probably thought they were buying at the time of taking out their insurance policy.

So, when it comes to renewing your Home Insurance Policy and you are thinking about Legal Expenses Insurance it may be useful to ask these sort of questions:-

• Will I be able to choose my solicitor or will I be restricted to a panel?
• What type of claims are excluded?
• What will I need to do in order to have access to cover (will it be at any cost to myself?).
• What is the limit of the financial cover?
• Are there any important terms that restrict my access to justice that I should be made aware of?

Other funding options are available other than Before the Event Legal Expenses Insurance. Please contact a member of Barcan Woodward’s specialist Personal and Medical Injuries Team to discuss further.