In the UK, it is legally mandatory to take out car insurance before heading onto the road in a car. Even if you opt for just third party cover, the bare minimum of legally permissible cover, rest assured that this insurance can fund repairs for damages you accidentally make to other vehicles.
However, what if your own vehicle sustains damage or you pick up an injury due to an accident for which you weren’t at fault? As most auto insurance policies won’t account for such inconveniences, adding legal assistance service to your insurance palette could help you better prepare for them.
Legal Assistance Service In A Nutshell
Though you might occasionally see an insurer using the term “legal assistance service”, alternative names can include “legal expenses insurance” and “legal protection”. In any case, the objective of this insurance add-on remains the same: protecting you from the potential expense of legal action.
After some road accidents, it’s possible to make a standard claim in an attempt to recover your financial losses from the guilty party’s insurance. However, should your vehicle incur huge damage or you are personally injured or lose income, recuperating the costs may require a trip to court.
This is where legal assistance service can really come into its own. Legal fees – including those of appointing solicitors, barristers and witnesses as well as taking time off work for court visits – can be very expensive. However, your legal cover can provide something of a reassuring safety net.
It can also pay for legal fees with which you have been hit because someone has tried taking you to court due to damage for which you were allegedly responsible, but you have been proven innocent.
Where Do The Bounds Of Legal Cover End?
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The wisdom of taking out legal expenses insurance is not always a foregone conclusion, especially as this type of cover often incurs a charge in itself. Keep in mind that you would only be able to dip into this insurance if your legal action is more than 50% likely to succeed, as The Guardian points out.
If you deem your chances of ever making a successful court claim short, you might want to forgo the £25 fee that this cover can typically entail in the UK. Furthermore, that’s on the assumption that you only want to cover one car, as this insurance product is typically sold “per car”, Which? says.
There are various other exemptions to the reach of legal expenses insurance. If the legal fees necessitated by a court case will exceed the amount you aim to claim, your insurer might bar you from utilizing the cover, which also can’t pay the actual damages you seek via court action.
How Can You Obtain Legal Assistance Service
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If you remain convinced that, despite its documented limits, legal expenses cover remains worth taking out, there are various means of going through with this plan. It’s common to be offered legal cover when you take out auto insurance, says the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Still, if the price is making you waver over whether to accept this kind of supplementary insurance, consider that you might be able to source it for free. The UK-based independent broker Call Wiser includes free legal expenses insurance with every car insurance policy that it provides.
That’s far from the only reason to select Call Wiser as your motor insurance provider, so head over to the broker’s website to learn more incentives. Over the phone, they can act on a UK driver’s request for car insurance that, whether or not legal cover is added, provides good value for money.
