What is included in legal protection insurance?
Contrary to popular belief, legal expenses insurance does not include everything. On the one hand, the costs are only paid up to the contractually agreed amount and not unlimited. The insurance covers, for example, costs for advice from and representation by a lawyer, legal costs, compensation, costs for translations or bail bonds.
The latter are not really covered by any insurance, they are only granted as an advance. Legal cases that occur or are negotiated abroad are significantly more expensive, but at the same time are usually less well covered by the insurers. The sums insured are lower.
Legal protection insurance costs between 130 and 290 francs a year if the insured is single and 30 years old. Family insurance costs between 150 and 350 francs a year.
Do you really need legal protection insurance?
The question has to be asked differently: How big is the risk of getting involved in a legal dispute? For example, if you live next to belligerent neighbors and can expect to be sued for every little thing, you certainly need such insurance more than someone who stays out of all disputes and is not otherwise involved in trouble.
At the same time, the range of insurance companies is huge and the advertising promises great: It seems that every legal case can be insured! Of course, this is not the case and it is not uncommon for legal protection insurance to fail in precisely the case in which it is to be claimed.
Benefits are usually excluded, especially in family and inheritance law matters as well as in the area of tax law.
However, it always makes sense to have legal protection insurance for traffic, which is also recommended for constant pedestrians. However, insured persons should make sure that they do not have double insurance, because that becomes unnecessarily expensive and does not help in an emergency.
Important to note: As a rule, legal protection insurance has a waiting period. This means that the insurance will not be paid if a legal dispute was pending when the insurance was taken out. So anyone who quarrels with the other party involved in the accident no longer needs to take out legal protection insurance. This would not help a bit, because the waiting period is usually at least three months.
Conclusion: Legal protection insurance is not absolutely necessary
Legal protection insurance promises a lot, but does not keep everything. The reason is that the advertising suggests taking over numerous legal cases, but at the same time the most important areas are excluded. In particular, insurers do not pay in areas of law in which disputes are particularly frequent and can be very expensive.
Tax law, family law and inheritance law are the three areas of law in which people quarrel the most and which insurers do not benefit from. Otherwise, legal protection insurance is recommended for all those people who are at high risk of getting involved in legal disputes.
