Here are ten important tips that you should consider when taking out legal expenses insurance!
1. Make a risk assessment first
Legal protection insurance can be useful, but it is not always necessary. Before taking out such insurance, check whether you are exposed to such risks at all. For example, the risk of getting into a major legal dispute is significantly greater for tenants of an apartment or for workers who drive to work every day than with a pensioner or homeowner who lives in his own house. Many risks are not insured at all, as is often the case with family, divorce and inheritance law.
2. Use free options
Anyone who is a tenant in the Tenant Protection Association can take advantage of free legal advice in the event of a dispute. The community arbitration boards can also be used free of charge. Furthermore, proceedings before the social security court are not associated with costs for you, which also applies to labor law processes. If the assistance of a lawyer is deemed necessary in the legal process, but you cannot pay for it, there is an offer for free legal assistance. These options help you to save money because you do not have to cover such cases with legal protection insurance. Of course, legal protection insurance offers significantly more room for maneuver if there is a risk that is also covered by the insurance.
3. Traffic legal protection insurance also for pedestrians
Do you live in the big city? Or do you take a walk every day or do you walk to work? Then legal protection insurance can also be useful for you. Contrary to the general assumption, this is not only useful for those who drive their car every day, but also for people who regularly do without it and use other means of transport or are on foot. Disputes often arise in accidents, which are made worse if such accidents result in lengthy or even incurable injuries. It can be about the degree of work ability as well as the future pension amount, compensation payments and the assumption of legal costs. The premium for traffic legal expenses insurance is negligible compared to the possible costs!
4. Compare offers
Not only should you check whether various legal protection insurance services are already covered by another insurance (e.g. parts of real estate legal protection insurance via building insurance), you should also look at the prices and services of the individual providers. These differ enormously in some cases and it is quite possible that a provider may charge twice the amount for the same service. In some cases, benefits are also severely restricted and are only increased if horrendous additional premiums are charged. Exact testing and comparison are the order of the day!
5. Choose a lawyer yourself
Most legal expenses insurers do not give their policyholders a free choice when it comes to hiring a lawyer. Are lawyers then prescribed here? if these are not commissioned but a different one is chosen, the insurance benefits will be refused. If you do not want to be confined to the insurance lawyers, you should make sure that you have a free choice of lawyer when you sign the contract. In some cases, the selection is only based on? Specialist lawyers? limited, which is a limitation you can still live with if the remaining terms of the insurance contract are acceptable to you. The disadvantage of insurance lawyers: they often try to make a comparison and do everything to avoid an expensive process. In many cases, this can be detrimental to the insured.
6. Note termination options
Before signing the insurance contract, make sure that it can be canceled at any time. Most of these contracts are tacitly renewed for one year if they are not terminated with a specific notice period at the end of the insurance year. It is also important that you can give notice for an important reason outside the normal notice periods. Most insurance companies reserve the right to terminate after a claim has been settled. The policyholder should also have this right!
7. Observe waiting periods
Before you sign the contract, please note the waiting periods, which are also known as waiting periods. The insurance providers differ in this point and so there are providers who have waiting periods of one month as well as those who have a waiting period of three months. These deadlines are often differentiated according to which legal area is affected. In general, no insurance claims based on pending disputes will be accepted. So if you think it would be possible to take out legal protection insurance because a dispute with the landlord threatens to end up in court, you're wrong! It is precisely this approach that is to be prevented, which is why insurers are waiting.
8. Note exclusions
Many exclusions are the same for all insurance companies. No legal protection insurance will surely take over disputes involving disagreements between the insured and one's own company. Disputes arising from family law, divorce and inheritance law, liability cases or legal cases relating to tax and levy law are also not taken over. In addition, the individual insurers can include further exclusions in their contractual terms and thus determine in which legal case they will act and when not. Insurers often also differ in typical points, such as in labor law. While some providers completely exclude such protection, others at least offer initial advice from internal lawyers.
9. Note the coverage heights
A legal dispute can quickly become very expensive. It is not for nothing that most legal expenses insurance companies have ruled out family law disputes, because there are the most common legal cases that involve high costs. It is therefore important for you as the policyholder that the guaranteed levels of coverage per insured event. These are usually given per case and calendar year. In addition, a maximum amount for advice from the lawyer is often contractually stipulated. It is important to know that many insurers provide for termination if there are regular insurance claims. Even if these cases are actually covered by legal expenses insurance, no insurer accepts that he regularly has to pay large amounts for an insured person. He will exercise his special right of termination.
10. Register a claim in good time
Almost everyone is familiar with this procedure from car insurance: if an accident has occurred, the insurer would like to be informed immediately of all the details. If necessary, he will appoint an expert and have the actual damage estimated before payment of the services. This procedure is also important for legal expenses insurance. A possible dispute is first reported to the insurance company, which then decides on how to proceed and, if necessary, makes a cost commitment. If you do not take this step, but contact a lawyer directly for advice, you can expect the benefits to be cut by legal expenses insurance. They cannot be deleted entirely, but a reduction is permitted. It is therefore always advisable to inform the insurer first and only then to take further steps in the possible legal dispute.
Additional tip: Find legal protection insurance now and compare the offers!
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