Legal Expenses Insurance paying for my claim against Nationwide

[onehotxfirefighter]

Hi folks

I thought a few weeks ago about a policy I have (Legal protection) through my house insurance so I phoned them and filled in a claim form (edit) and today they have confirmed that they will pursue Nationwide through the Scottish courts system for return of bank charges totaling over £6200. I will not have to pay a thing. It is worth checking that you have cover and if you qualify they might pay for and handle the whole claim. Worth a try.

[photoman]

I do hope that the Insurance policy was through Nationwide ?

It would be lovely to know that they are paying out for your legal aid in order to take themselves to court !!

[onehotxfirefighter]

Lol and yes they are paying for it.

[barracad]

This is great news. Please let us know how you get on.

[ladybird17]

Good thinking!! My home insurance legal cover paid for an employment tribunal case some time back - it was many of thousands of pounds(and I won) and it wouldn't have occurred to me if someone hadn't prompted me to look at my contents insurance.

Good luck!!

[SteveH2508]

Hmm... might be worth checking with your union whether they might fess up for this.

[photoman]

Okay.

On a more serious note here guys.

My initial post was actually meant to be a bit tongue in cheek.

If Nationwide really are paying for the case, I think you may need to consider how this is actually going to work practically?

I do believe (and someone correct me if I'm wrong), that when an Insurance company is paying for legal costs on a case, that they then have some say with regards at what point you should accept an offer (or at least at what point they are no longer prepared to continue funding it). This is done in order to mitigate their own losses.

For example, should a claimant not accept what the Insurance co. consider a reasonable offer from a defendant, and insist on a case going further, then be seen as a vexatious litigant by a court, this could potentialy lose a case, and end up costing the Insurance co. a lot more, than if the offer had been accepted.

I think this unique scenario could be a potential conflict of interest, if the defendant is also the (or part of the same)company paying for the claimants case, and so is as such having an influence in it's course?

 

Barracad, any thoughts, or any ideas on who may know?

[barracad]

I actually missed the fact that it was a Nationwide policy. Not sure how exactly this would work but I would imagine it may cause problems.

 

I'll see what I can find out.

 

Apart from that, utilising legal protection via your home insurance seems like a great idea, especially for Scottish claims or English claims over £5k. Will be interesting to see how this works in practice.

[blazing-badger]

Hmmm, very interesting... I can see Photoman's point above about the conflict of interest. However Nationwide are paying for the Solicitor who does not have a conflict himself. I can see that, at some point, Nationwide might try to withdraw funding for the claim but as I understad it they cannot actually drop the claim themselves as only the claimant can do so. So even if that happened, the claimant could choose either to pay the Solicitors himself or continue as a litigant in person.

[indebtstudent]

In practice guys although the home insurance is "Nationwide" like most policies the actual insurance part is provided by somebody else. All Nationwide get is probably a % for every policy they sell. I believe the legal cover is provided by DAS (I would have to check my policy to be sure).

[indebtstudent]

Also IMO it is an easy case the solicitor since the law is clear plus if he's stuck he can just pop on here

[jjrj]

There should be a clause in your legal expenses policy that states that the policy will not support any action against "us" meaning Nationwide and DAS. If there is no such clause it may be that the policy has been negligently drafted and it will be for Nationwide and DAS to argue about whose negligence it was. In any event the chances are that nationwide or DAS or both will pay your claim before too many costs are incurred.