Every driver needs to know this...

[ChrisKnottIns]

Every driver needs to know this...

My MD was telling me about a minor car accident he had recently.

Ever since, he's been plagued by calls from firms asking him if he was injured. When he says “No” he's asked if he's sure he wasn’t injured. Again he says “No, I wasn’t injured”. So he's then asked “Was there anyone else in the vehicle who might have been injured”.

He has two objections to this. Firstly, he objects to being encouraged to make a claim for injury that clearly isn’t warranted and, secondly, he wonders from where they got his personal details.

Recent law changes arising from something called The Jackson Review aimed to stamp out such ‘ambulance-chasing’ practices, particularly by banning the referral fees offered by law firms.

NO WIN NO FEE
These sort of 'No Win No Fee' arrangements mean that if you don’t win your case there is no charge levied by the law firm/accident management firm for their services. It has always been worth a punt even if there wasn’t much chance of success. However, many won’t appreciate the sting in the tail - the flip-side of the coin where if you win, there's a possibility a fee will be charged and it could be as much as 25% of your compensation award.

This kind of approach is known as After The Event (ATE) cover, where assistance is offered or solicited following an accident/injury. Since the reforms, if there’s not much chance of success these providers tend to back away quite quickly rather than fight your corner and get you what you might deserve, leaving you on your own.

LEGAL EXPENSES COVER
A better alternative to 'No Win No Fee' is something known as Before The Event (BTE) cover. Usually called Legal Expenses cover, this is arranged in advance (to run alongside your motor insurance). VOC Insurance offers this protection which is designed to pay your legal costs & expenses to pursue a claim. We have taken care to additionally ensure that our Legal Expenses offering guarantees that there will be NO deduction at all for costs from any compensation award.

I thought it might be useful to see these two very different approaches operating in stark monetary terms. So here goes…

If using a 'No Win No Fee' type firm (ATE) an injury award of just £8,000 could see a fee of 25% (£2,000) being payable for success, reducing your payout to £6,000.

In comparison, that £2,000 would buy you 80 years’ worth of BTE cover with VOC Insurance (charged at £25 for the year) and you’d get to keep 100% of your award.

For the best service and to guarantee you keep 100% of your injury award it really does make sound financial sense to arrange cover in advance, just in case.

To add (BTE) Legal Expenses Cover to your VOC policy at the next renewal please call 0800 023 4374 or 01424 205077.

PLEASE BE ASSURED TOO THAT WE NEVER PASS ON ANY DETAILS TO ANYONE FOR THE PURPOSES OF PESTERING CUSTOMERS TO CLAIM FOR INJURIES. We only share data as necessary to directly service your cover and to process any claims you instigate.

best,
Nick

PS. Don't forget to call us if your car insurance is due in the coming months as we have prizes available until the end of the year. Details of this month's prize draw have previously been posted to the site.

[Chesh740R]

Sorry I call bull**** on that, you lot sold my fathers details of a no fault on his behalf accident he had, he was plagued by calls from firms offering there services in relation

To top it off despite numerous emails/calls to your offices to get you to claim from the other party you did nothing and the car was repaired by his own insurance firm and he had to pay the excess.

Needless to say we wouldn't recommend you to insure anything.

[CTCNetwork]

Hi,

And so called BTE will still not guarantee that your details are not sold off or passed on to some "marketing company" for the purposes of calling to check on injury claims, nor the endless texts from same.

You're right Chesh, there is definitely something nasty in the air...

Des. . .

[ChrisKnottIns]

Originally Posted by Chesh740R

Sorry I call bull**** on that, you lot sold my fathers details of a no fault on his behalf accident he had, he was plagued by calls from firms offering there services in relation

To top it off despite numerous emails/calls to your offices to get you to claim from the other party you did nothing and the car was repaired by his own insurance firm and he had to pay the excess.

Needless to say we wouldn't recommend you to insure anything.

I don't know the case but we definitely didn't pass his details on to anyone outside of our claims service - as I've already said, we don't do that. Your insurer may have, the claims management service may have, but we certainly didn't.

If he was not able to claim from a third party it will be because they didn't consider there to be a reasonable chance of success. Could it be that they did a credit repair? How long ago was this?

If you want to provide me with details via PM I'll take a look at what actually happened.