Legal Expenses Cover

[wonkywinch]

I added legal cover to my house insurance for about £40. I had cause to use it a couple of years ago and the upshot was the handling firm Arc Legal handed the case to a solicitors in Bristol, I had to pay £50 excess and about 9 months later after lots of correspondence I was offered a settlement in excess of £30k which represented about 60% of my actual costs against the solicitors that did the conveyancing on my house purchase.

I took a view this was within the limits of "litigation risk" for me (ie 50/50) so I accepted it. A couple of months later I got my £50 excess back too.

I believe they have to be sure there is a 51% chance or greater of winning before they would take on a claim.

 

[Cerebus]

I had a claim and used Legal Expenses Cover. There were two tall mature trees which my neighbour planted 20 years ago next to my garage, My building is on my boundary, when I say next to my building, he dug a hole next to my building and planted a willow tree in it. There are cracks in my walls, During Storm Arwen I could see these trees moving violently in the wind and when I put my finger on the crack I could feel movement.

With Legal Expenses Cover you have to get an Expert Witness and pay for it your self. In my case I had a report done by a Chartered Surveyor, but his report was not strong enough. he put "The cracking may be associated with the tree on the other side of the wall" Had he said "In my opinion the tree caused the damage" they may have decided to take it to court.
As it was my Insurance Company appointed a firm of Solicitors who spent £5800 of the insurance companies money with letter going back & forth to the owner of the trees who said it was not his trees which caused the damage.

Any good outcome?