Rider Support Services vs New Law

I have just transferred the legal to-ings and fro-ings from New Law (assigned by Ebike Insurance) to a specialist bike place called Rider Support Services.

This is for a few reasons:

1) My insurance comp reckon my claim may get resolved as a partial fault claim - not happy about that

2) New Law are not a bike specialist - A question I was asked was "Did you have your seatbelt on?"....

3) The first letter they sent me was addressed to Mr S Colby (Should be Mr C Sipson)

4) For 2 days I've been trying to get onto New Law by phone and for two days my contact has been "away from his desk" and doesnt return my calls

5) When I spoke to RSS the guy nearly fell about laughing when I said I had been assigned to New Law as they had seen a large rise in people transferring to RSS from New Law

Plus a few mates have been served very well by RSS. They were that efficient with getting the paperwork sent out that they locked my electronic case file to print the details while the guy I was on the phone to was trying to input more data....

Originally Posted by Colby

2) New Law are not a bike specialist - A question I was asked was "Did you have your seatbelt on?"....

I sincerely hope you spat your coffee out at the guy, then said "Yes" with a REALLY straight face!

New Law have been working on a claim for me for the past year. They did say they were bike law specialists, but they do seem quite slow. Started off well but are now telling me they don't want the case to go to court cos they now don't think it'll get any better for me than 50/50.

Ever so slight de-rail - is legal expenses cover worthwhile? I seem to hear a lot of really bad stories about it.

I used to work for a law firm so have lots of lawyer friends (whilst none of them are personal injury / road traffic specialists I'd be happy going with anyone they recommend). Dunno, I guess I just think that if the time comes when I really need it I'd be happier appointing someone who's not just picking these cases up off a conveyor belt?

I would say yes. RSS I think may only be interested if they think they will win it (i.e. non fault) so I would recommend them (there are other specialists too) for non-fault claims.

For fault claims it is worthwhile having legal cover cos then at least you dont have to deal with much regarding the claim. Apart from the accident report, all correspondence would then go thru them.

So yes, go for legal cover for when you are at fault, but then move to a specialist if you are not at fault. The insurance companies/allocated legal people dont tell you that you can transfer but you can.

Originally Posted by MiniMatt

Ever so slight de-rail - is legal expenses cover worthwhile? I seem to hear a lot of really bad stories about it.

I used to work for a law firm so have lots of lawyer friends (whilst none of them are personal injury / road traffic specialists I'd be happy going with anyone they recommend). Dunno, I guess I just think that if the time comes when I really need it I'd be happier appointing someone who's not just picking these cases up off a conveyor belt?

Your case is diffrent because you already know people in the legal profession, I had a totally non-fault accident abroad but I didn't have fully comp so i had to cover the cost of repairs and then claim them back. The free solicetor appointed was pretty useless, mainly at keeping me in the loop with what was going on, took about a year to resolve with plenty of intervention from myself. However it was all free and apart from lost intrest on the money it didnt cost me a penny so all in all it was still a good idea. I'm just going to be a little more forceful if it happens again.