If you travel with a drunk driver and get injured due to their bad driving, does that mean you can’t claim? A September 2019 poll commissioned by Glasgow-based solicitors, Dallas MacMillan, indicated that two-thirds of those polled believed that if you agree to be a passenger in a car driven by someone you know is under the influence of alcohol, you won’t be able to claim compensation from the driver if they crash the car and you’re injured. This 66% (or so) majority are mistaken in their understanding of the law. People injured in such circumstances can claim successfully – and you may be surprised by how fully they can claim. We agree that travelling with a driver who is under the influence is a very bad idea. On the other hand, you should not lose sight of the fact that passengers in vehicles very rarely have no compensation claim available to them if they are injured in an accident. In this article, we’ll look at the law on accidents involving passengers in vehicles driven Continue Reading
Is Legal Expenses Insurance worth it?
Legal expenses insurance (LEI) is also known as legal protection insurance or even just legal insurance. It can pay for the cost of legal advice, if you need help, in a variety of scenarios - for example - a boundary dispute with a neighbouring property owner a building dispute with a tradesman who has done work on your house an employment dispute a personal injury compensation claim following an accident The insurance can cover you whether you are the person initiating the claim or the person against whom the claim is being made. The main benefit of LEI is that it provides you with a route to justice which may otherwise be too expensive for you to consider. It can be a stand-alone policy but is often an add-on to other insurance, such as house contents insurance. Types of LEI There’s an important distinction between ‘before the event’ (BTE) LEI and ‘after the event’ (ATE) LEI. The ‘event’ is the thing that's happened for which you need the legal advice Continue Reading
How legal expenses insurance can give you access to justice (that might otherwise be denied)
I was renewing my first aid qualification recently and some statistics really hit home. Less than 1 in 10 people in Britain survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. In countries where cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is taught in schools on the other hand (e.g. Norway), as many as 1 in 4 survive. It seems that providing folks with an early education in first aid fundamentals improves heart attack victims’ chances of making it through their experience alive. In the same way, a recent report by a group of international lawyers has argued that making Legal Expenses Insurance (LEI) more widely available would improve access to justice, giving some people a possible legal remedy where otherwise their chances would be as good as dead. In this article, we are going to consider 3 questions related to LEI. Firstly, what is LEI and what types of LEI exist? Secondly, who is most likely to benefit from taking out LEI? And, lastly, why you should make a general check of Continue Reading
Failing to wear a seatbelt (A problem on the increase?)
The all-time best-selling album of piano music is The Köln Concert by Keith Jarrett. It was recorded at Cologne’s Opera House on 24 January 1975 before an audience of about 1400 people. It’s the best-selling solo album in jazz history (with sales of more than 3.5 million). An astonishing display of improvisational melody and musicianship. Yet it almost did not happen. The piano provided for the late-night performance was sub-standard. Its bass notes were muffled and its high notes tinny. Jarrett himself was suffering from flu. He almost drove off into the night, leaving the first-time, teenage concert promoter, Vera Brandes, to “face the music” of a disappointed and possibly irate public. But he didn’t. Taking pity on Vera – “doing it just for her” – he took a chance and produced one of jazz’s most iconic performances. Risk-taking does not always have good consequences, of course. Failing to wear a seatbelt does not cause a collision but, if a collision occurs, Continue Reading