Benefits covered by Legal Insurance
Common legal protection plans cover the costs up to the general insured sum. Latter depends on the plan chosen and varies from as low as 100,000€ through to no limitation.
Insurable legal expenses are those of:
- Court, incl.
- Appraiser's honoraria
- Interpreter/ translator
- Witness
- Lawyer
- Mediation proceedings
- Opposing party costs, insofar that the insured-person must bear them
Legal Protection Modules
Private Legal Insurance
On a standard policy the following aspects are covered under the 'Private' module:
- Administration
- Compensation for damages
- Contract & Property
- Consultation (solely) for
- Family
- Inheritance
- Partnership
- Criminal Offences and Misdemeanour
- Inheritance
- Misdemeanour and Criminal Acts
- Social
- Tax
- Conflict solving by mediation
- Patient and Custody Decree counselling
- Victim and anti-stalking
Extended Coverage:
Job Legal Protection
In Germany the job-related legal module can only be purchased alongside private legal insurance and covers the following two aspects of our working lives.
External affairs:
The so-called 'Professional Rights Legal Protection' component (German: Berufsrechtsschutz) is the corner stone of job legal insurance and is often used for scenarios such as:
- Disputes with the statutory pension insurance institute
- Disputes with the Job Centre, e.g. because of miscalculated benefits
Internal affairs:
Disagreements between the employee and employer in conjunction with contractual agreements. This component is the called 'Labour Law Legal Protection' (German: Arbeitsrechtsschutz) and is a subcomponent of the 'Professional Rights Legal Protection' module.
Some of the scenarios it covers:
- Unjustified warning notices or a termination of employment
- Transfers to a different position with less pay
- Wage-, holiday- or overtime issues
- Maternity leave & parental leave matters
Professional Rights Legal insurance is what we often see companies offer, promoting cheap rates, yet tend to “forget” to mention that Labour Law Legal protection is not included and if, with curtailments that can only be spotted by reading the small print.
Traffic Legal Insurance
For the traffic legal insurer it is usually irrelevant if the incident occurred on the way to work, during a business trip or whilst on vacation.
Even conflicts in connection with a vehicle purchase or repair are insured.
Insured Persons
The policy holder and family members are covered in their capacity as,
- Owner of a motor vehicle, or trailer registered in their name
- Operator of any motor vehicle, or trailer
- Cyclist
- Pedestrian
Insurance cover also extends to all persons in their capacity as authorised drivers, or authorised passengers in motor vehicles.
Insured Legal Issues
- Administrative legal protection in traffic matters
- Compensatory damages
- Contract and property law
- Criminal legal protection
- Disciplinary and professional ethics
- Regulatory offence
- Social-security-tribunal
- Tax matters before courts
Insured Costs
- Legal advice and representation
- Mediation/ Arbitration
- Court case, regardless of outcome
- Expenses for witnesses
- Expert / Assessor
- Security deposit
Legal Insurance As Financial Protection
Often the circumstances of an incident are not clear-cut so that a court must decide who is at fault and therefore responsible to bears the costs.
With traffic legal insurance at your side you will not only need to worry about such costs, but will also be able to enforce demands such as:
- Financial compensation for
- Pain & Suffering
- Property damage
- Loss of Income
- Fault resp. liability clarification
- Warding off false accusations
Insured Scenarios
Extra Services & Benefits
- Legal counselling per telephone
Nowadays all good value for money products include cost-free telephone legal consultations with attorneys who advise on legal matters and even situations before they turn into a legal dispute. This additional service has many names - JuraTel, Jurcall, JuraFon, etc. - and is an excellent approach to avoid having to pay the agreed excess per claim when consulting a lawyer face-to-face even just for an initial consultation. Should you not know, an initial fee starts at 190€ for private and 360€ for commercial matters!
However, as good as this may sound one must pay attention to detail because insurers will draw consequences of the expenses a client generates from using such a service, meaning costs are cross-linked to polices in the background. Thus, to avoid nasty surprises such as legal cover being cancelled after a claim has been settled (or not) or the policy simply not being renewed, it is ever so more important to understand how the legal insurer has implemented their telephone legal consultation service. To keep it simple: Better insurers do not use external lawyers and knowing that these provide a minimum of 40,000 telephone consultations per year, the importance of in-house legal support becomes even more logical.
Be on the safe side!
Whether the right insurance product has been purchased the customer will only ever know when having to file a claim. As with any insurance product, foremost 'quality' must predominate 'price' and therefore having a trustworthy broker to find a perfect balance is incontestable the smartest approach. Yet we agree, checking can never harm and doing so by using "Franke & Bornberg" ratings will put your mind at rest to have purchased the right insurance, or initiate a cancellation procedure with our help, if required.