Thread: legal insurance sold by FSB worthless

hi
can anybody advise we took out legal cover to protect us from ant future litigation that may happen regarding our business
we had our water pipe smashed broken by local farmer when he was excavating in the field /we have private water suply not uncommon in this area of aberdeenshire
farmer would not take responsability for it so we had to take civil action to recover our costs our business was shut down as the water then became contaminated, we spoke to FSB who then put us in contact with there legal dept, abby legal protection we explained situation ,then 5 days later got letter fron levy and macrea based in glasgow containing letter to say they would reprosent us and we would have to pay £750 upfront .
found that realy odd that they would ask for money upfront considering we thought are costs would be met by insuras
we quized them further they then seid that the claim had not been approved as yet .
further phone calls later we were told that abby had dismissed the claim on the grounds that the costs could not be quantifeid
we then argued this to no avail
contacted fso they investigated and seid that abby had comback wth the clause of contamination
but it was the pipe that was broken resulting in the contamination
we are at loss we feel that the FSB have in fact sold us a policy that is not fit for purpose
and considering that they set themselfs up as the champoin and advisors for small busineses it a joke
cab anybody advise on this our civil case is still ongoing have had to meet the costs ourselfes at moment and we are fighting the farmers insuras
cheers carol

Hi,

FSB are the Federation of Small Business who offer a legal ADVICE service as part of their standard membership. THe advice service is just that an advice service and they do not actually put their hands in their pockets to pay for legal services. The legal advice service is provided by Abbey Legal Protection who are a reputable legal expenses insurer.

In this case did the FSB (Via their appointed Insurance Broker) actually sell you a legal expenses policy. If so you will have a Key Facts document/Summary of Cover explaining the cover provided. My suspicion is that their is only the advice service in place.

If your property has been damaged then your first 'port of call' would ordinarily be your own property insurers who would then deal and make a claim against those allegedly responsible for the damage. The claim would be for the material damage to the pipe and the rectification costs. The contamination issue only arises if the damage was not promptly make good. The fact that your business was shut down due to water contamination should have been picked up under the Business Interruption section of any business insurance you hold (If any. What sort of business do you run?) again the insurer would seek to make a recovery.

H

we run holiday cottages and your right no mention of the fact that we can claim under the business interruption has been mentioned this has been going on now for 6 mnts
the legal cover was sold to us as part of the fsb membership and the rep sat in my home and told me that all litigation problems would be coverd
there was no mention of limitations
as far as allianz are concerned it is contamination in the broad sence and we are not coverd
we then claimed on our home insurance with nowchich uinion
and had our claim upheld for repaire of the smashed pipe
ironicaly it was the same company appointed to asess the claim for both allianz and norwhich union that came to seperate conclusions
its a real nightmare to us to find both policies are usless
and i am not having a go at the fso and as they seid their sevice is free
but all we got was an interpretation of the insurance companys small print
i could have done that myself
were is the fair play by insuras here
also they first declined the claim /alianz on the fact that they could not sanction owing to it being the farmewrs fault and we should persue him
when the fso became involved it was interpretad as contamination
thanks carol