Legal Cover

Hey just got my Third Party Fire and Theft insurance from rampdale (best quote for us ones in northern ireland). Twas very reasonable for the wee 250cc hornet. However they have send me a brochure for legal cover, something about reclaiming costs after an accident.

It is only £22.50 extra onto my policy.

Should I go for it?

Yes.

If your tftp and someone hits you, legal cover gets you a lawyer to deal with the 3rd party insurance company. I used mine when i got rear ended, a lot easier than dealing with the 3rd party insurers because you have somone working for you!

Dan

No, it's a total waste of time and money. Far better to engage a specialist bike solicitor in the event of an off rather than get caught up with the no-win no-fee brigade that don't get you a payout for three years and secretly take double the norm in legal fees that covertly comes out of your settlement figure.

Right, now you have two opinions .


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Originally Posted by jonboy

No, it's a total waste of time and money. Far better to engage a specialist bike solicitor in the event of an off rather than get caught up with the no-win no-fee brigade that don't get you a payout for three years and secretly take double the norm in legal fees that covertly comes out of your settlement figure.

Right, now you have two opinions ..

Legal cover doesnt get you the no win, no fee brigade.

It got me a BMF approved solicitor. Though you can chose to nominate any solicitor of your choice as youre not constrained to accept a firm that you dont think will fight on your behalf.

My problem is the bike solicitors are all good at dealing with the accident but I need someone whos going to help me deal with the assault side which is why Ive still not appointed one yet. They all keep faffing me off with meaningless stuff that doesnt help me.

I need a firm who will deal with both sides of my accident. If it had just been the accident, then Im very glad I had the legal cover. Im getting my gear and bike being dealt with seperately to the personal injury so I can get some money back this year. So thats a bonus for the legal cover and protection.

Incidentally, van man WAS insured. His company insurance have requested the police report as van man is no longer working for them

I would say this is a difficult one and I can only tell you what happened in my case.

I was involved in an accident and as I only had TPFT insurance with legal cover it meant I had to claim for my damages through the firm the insurance company had legal cover with. When I tried to get this firm to deal with it, they just took ages getting the details let alone actually doing anything about it, so I went to a specialist bike solicitor, White Dalton for those that want to know, who I found to be a million times better and are still helping me to sort this out, and they have not charged me a penny yet.

However, White Dalton did make clear that I could be liable to pay for certain things, which I might have been able to get legal aid for or I should get insurance for, but since I had legal cover my insurance company would take care of it. Now I don't know if my insurance company have had to pay for anything but it was reassuring to know that everything would be taken care of.

Having said that my insurance company may not have had to pay anything so it might have made no difference, but to be honest the legal cover came free with my policy so I really don't care either way as I didn't pay anything.

One thing I'm not sure about and would like to know is that if you are in the unfortunate event of being involved in a road traffic accident and are then taken to court for it, would legal cover get you a lawyer so that you can defend yourself?

I had legal cover and 3PFT... got knocked off and insurers (Bennetts) went at it as if I'd had comp insurance - got me a hire bike within a few days (which I had for almost 2 months), did all the chasing for personal injury and the bike and clothing... dead glad I had it, about 6 months from the accident to it all being paid up and finished.

Contrast to...

Got knocked off the pushbike almost 18 months ago. No win no fee brigade are still chasing. Guy (minicab scumbag) openly lied to police, council and his insurers... nothing doen though. Sometime in the next 6 months they'll maybe get around to doing a medical report (2 years on, that'll help) and if there is any sort of payout it isn't likely to be much for a lot of pain and hassle with hospitals, doctor, etc. and worse still, the guy is still cabbing.

For the money it cost, I wouldn't be without legal cover again (though it's only of use for 3PFT or less...)

Let's face it, if you get taken out, it's probably going to be down to a muppet cager doing something daft... which is where legal cover really helps!