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WHY USE US?

You might have legal expenses insurance cover. Sometimes this is called 'before the event' cover (BTE). Sometimes you get this for free as part of household or car cover. You might not even realise you have it, so check! If in doubt bring the insurance document to your lawyer so they can check.

If you do have such cover, it is important you let your lawyer know as soon as possible. This is because almost all insurance companies will only reimburse you costs incurred with their prior approval, and we will charge for work done by your lawyer to get the insurance company to provide this cover (it is not always easy!). Also these policies are frequently very limited in what they cover, and they include restrictions on freedom of choice of a lawyer and do not provide full cover for the lawyer's hourly rates and other charges.

If you do not already have BTE legal expenses insurance cover, for court claims (or potential court claims), you may be able to arrange insurance cover now. This is sometimes called 'after the event insurance' (ATE). It might be advisable to arrange this if you can afford it, although ATE premiums do tend to be very much higher than BTE premiums because the risk for the insurance company is very much higher. The cost of ATE cover is therefore prohibitive in many cases. However sometimes you can delay paying the premium and insure against having to pay it unless you win, whereupon you add it to the costs claimed from the loser.

There is a downside to ATE however. The rules say that if you have it your opponent has to be told. That might mean that the opponent will resist your claim more. That is partly because they will not want to pay the premium but also because they will know that if they can defeat your claim there is an insurance company that they can get their costs back from.

A lawyer is not an insurance expert and so cannot give best advice on these products. Arranging ATE is also very complicated and so we will charge for the work we do in trying to arrange it whether or not we are successful, and those fees may not be recoverable from an opponent even if you win the case.

A lawyer should not have any interest in recommending any particular insurance policy or method of funding unless the lawyer specifically tells you otherwise. This is to ensure total independence. lawyers should not seek commissions from (eg) insurance companies or enter into any other arrangement that might mar their ability to give independent advice to their clients.