Can insurance fund my medical negligence claim?
The answer is yes, possibly. This is just one of the ways you could fund your medical negligence claim.
What is Legal Expenses Insurance?
Legal Expenses Insurance, sometimes called ‘Family Legal Protection’, is a type of insurance usually attached to an existing home insurance policy. Many people do not realise that they have opted for the benefit of Legal Expenses Insurance and the types of claim covered by it.
How can Legal Expenses Insurance help to fund my medical negligence claim?
Depending on the wording of your home insurance policy in place at the time of the alleged negligence or the date you became aware of the alleged negligence, if sometime later, Legal Expenses Insurance could provide cover for the investigation of your claim up to a certain value (called an indemnity limit).
Types of Legal Expenses Insurance
The type of cover available to you will very much depend on the written agreement in place with your insurer.
- Some insurers provide full cover. This means that in the event of an unsuccessful claim, your insurer will cover your legal costs and third party expenses (known as disbursements) up to the value of the indemnity limit. If you win your claim, your reasonable legal costs and disbursements would instead be recoverable from your opponent.
- Some insurers provide partial cover. We are increasingly seeing funding arrangements whereby insurers agree to cover certain parts of the claim, for example agreeing to fund disbursements only. In this type of situation, we may be able to offer you a No-Win-No-Fee Agreement alongside disbursement funding to cover your legal costs.
Can I choose my own solicitor to pursue my medical negligence claim?
This also varies and depends on the wording of your insurance policy. Many insurance companies will allow you (the Claimant) to nominate your own solicitor to deal with the initial investigations of your claim and on-wards.
However, some insurance companies will only agree to provide cover if you instruct pre-approved panel solicitors to investigate the claim. There are some very limited circumstances in which you may be able to seek to challenge this.
How we can help
Shrdha Kapoor is a Paralegal in our expert Medical Negligence team.
At Nelsons, we have specialist Clinical Negligence panel members. We would be happy to take a look at your insurance policy documents to see if you have valid Legal Expenses Insurance and if so, possibly contact your insurance company to discuss cover and representation for your medical negligence claim.
If your pre-existing insurance will not cover the claim, we can advise you on and explore alternative funding options with you, such as a No-Win-No-Fee Agreement or private paying fees.
For more information on pursuing a medical negligence claim, please contact us to discuss further with a member of our team.