Family Legal Protection Insurance - three questions.

[justwotido]

I am switching my home insurance to Admiral (their Gold policy) and asked for the optional Family Legal Protection to be added. I have some questions.

1. The agent was reading from a script and asked me a question along the lines of "do you already have someone to help you with legal matters?" I asked him to clarify the question and he said that if I already "had someone to help" me I might not need the cover. I do have an Employee Assistance Programme at work that would give legal advice, but it doesn't insure me against legal costs, so I said "no". But I thought it was a strangely worded question and I'm not sure if I'm missing something - who else might I have equivalent "help" from?

1. Also, the insurance policy only covers legal costs if there's a greater than 50% chance of winning. I'm aware that there are "no win no fee" solicitors out there, but they presumably want a greater than 50% chance of winning too, and might only take big cases with potentially large fees not small cases with small fees. Therefore, I'm thinking that the advantage of the insurance that it would cover smaller cases, and would cover the fees rather than fees being deducted from the claim. Have I interpreted correctly?

1. Finally, who decides if a case has a more than 50% chance of winning and is it sometimes used by lawyers to reject cases that they just don't want? It sounds like a subjective decision to me.

Hi different types of legal cases have different types of funding arrangements. You might struggle to get a solicitor to do no win no fee on an employment case for example because parties pay their own costs so there’s often not enough ££ to pay a lawyer’s costs out of any compensation awarded.

only covering claims which have more than 50% chance of success is assessed by the lawyer representing you. It’s sensible - why would anyone spend ££ on legal representation for a case that was likely to lose? It’s also a standard feature of all these policies

they are checking to make sure you’re not already insured for the same cover elsewhere - e.g. your union or another insurance policy

usually legal expenses cover is a very small extra amount so are you overthinking this a bit? Either you want/need it or you don’t?

"usually legal expenses cover is a very small extra amount so are you overthinking this a bit? Either you want/need it or you don’t?"

@Iizzyb I've had legal cover with my previous insurer for years. I'm switching insurer, and asked for it to be added - it was the insurance company that prompted me to think about whether I needed it. Usually they only do that if there's a high chance people don't need it. I tried to clarify what the agent meant by the question but as they were reading from a script, in a very noisy call centre, and English wasn't their first language, I didn't get a clear answer, so that's why I asked here. I'm not aware of having any other legal protection - but thought perhaps I was missing something.

It is a small amount - but there have been cases in the past of people signing up on a mass scale for insurances they don't need / can't use.