Create legal documents with an ARAG legal expenses policy

Most ARAG legal expenses insurance (LEI) products give customers access to an online document service where they can create personalised documents such as wills, tenancy agreements, job offer letters and many more.

The range of documents available is tailored to the policy that you sell, for instance with ARAG’s Landlords’ Legal Solutions your clients will have access to circa 160 legal documents, including Section 8 and 21 notices, as well as a comprehensive law guide.

The process of producing a document is simple. Using the Rapidocs system the user follows a series of step-by-step questions and their responses populate the required elements of the template to produce a tailored and personalised document to download.

The best thing is that many of the documents are free with ARAG policies, others will attract a reasonable fee but customers can always try before they buy.

The documents, letters and law guide are all written by solicitors and barristers and to ensure that they are current they are frequently reviewed and updated.

The latest updates, which will be rolled out in the coming months, include:

• Auto question scrolling: On pages with long lists of questions, users will no longer need to use a scroll bar; instead the next question appears in the middle of the page to ensure that they don’t miss anything
• Intelligent progress bar: Enabling easier navigation and includes a progress bar so users can see how far way they are from completing the form
• Online editing: In some cases customers will be able to directly edit the documents online if necessary and return the document for a final review 

To find out more about ARAG legal expenses insurance products and legal services online, either visit www.arag.co.uk or email enquiries@arag.com 

A cut too far?

Why do so many businesses operate without legal expenses insurance?
We still hear statistics that the vast majority of SMEs operate without the benefit of legal expenses insurance and my brokers tell me some of their clients are opting out of the legal cover when their insurance package is renewed.

In hard times such as these, all costs are scrutinised more carefully, but is cutting the legal expenses from a policy a cut too far? Are they throwing the baby out with the bath water?

To me this has two aspects; is the cover understood and is it properly sold?

Important covers provided by an LEI policy
Is a legal expense claim likely? I recently read that an employment dispute is 12 times more likely than a fire. The usual employment settlement is £3,000 but they can easily run to tens of thousands.

Add to that other covers like tax investigation, regulatory cover (including health and safety defence) and contract and debt. ARAG LEI policies have a limit of indemnity of £100k, so for the low premium involved surely it is well worth having.

Adding even more value
Don’t forget that the policy also includes legal and tax helplines which some think are worth the money alone.

And what about the online document drafting service? This is definitely a valuable benefit with circa 100 documents available for download and tailored online to suit the policyholder’s needs. For example, property owners can access a buy to let guide, draft a tenancy agreement and download an inventory checklist.

Selling LEI
Most SME business is transacted via a broker, so clearly they have a vital role to play. It may be tempting to let the client delete the legal cover, take the cheque and run, but is that in the client’s best interests?

I have sat in brokers’ offices and seen their renewal checklist where right at the end there is a one-liner “Commercial legal expenses, not required”.

At renewal discussions, is legal cover relegated to this tick box exercise at the end of the meeting or is it better to take time to sell the benefits and explain the cover?

Hopefully the answer is the latter option and ARAG can lend a hand with training and advice on sales materials, just ask.

I have run my own business and I would state categorically that every SME should have legal expenses insurance.

For and most importantly against the LASPO Bill

Various government proposals and bills seem to be having a tough time in the House of Lords, not least the rocky ride being shown to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (LASPO) which proposes cuts to legal aid and sweeping changes to civil litigation.

Currently in committee stage there have already been a few concessions made but with many peers opposed to the Bill the next report stage should be very interesting.

The last couple of weeks have seen a number of articles in the news with varying opinions on the LASPO Bill.

In the Telegraph over the weekend, the Justice Minister Ken Clarke was defending the Bill by highlighting the costs that the NHS pays in success fees to lawyers in clinical negligence cases. According to their figures:

• the number of claims rose from 5,426 in 2006/07 to 8,655 in 2010/11
• legal costs of claimants suing the NHS rose over the same period from £83 million to £195 million
• the cost of defending the actions rose from £49 million to £62 million.

Blaming the compensation culture, Clarke explained that "Taxpayers expect that the system should compensate claimants properly and reward their lawyers appropriately, not liberally.”

On the other side of the fence, the Telegraph article mentions phone-hacking victims like the Dowler family who have lobbied the government with a letter saying that “the changes will make it difficult for any but wealthy people to launch legal actions.”

Similarly, a range of charities, organisations and campaign groups are fighting back against the Bill, including AJAG and the CJA both of which ARAG is a member of.

The latest press release from the Law Society explains: “Peers in the House of Lords will discuss altering the legislation in a bid to eradicate "compensation culture" but the move would instead penalise victims of accidents, fraud, negligence and wrong-doing as well as businesses and even the Government.”

In an article in the Guardian, charities Oxfam and Amnesty International have joined the campaign on behalf of those suffering human rights abuses, warning that, “Victims of oil spills, pollution or land grabs in developing countries will no longer be able to pursue claims in British courts against multinational corporations under [these] legal reforms.”

Another hole identified in the Bill is that of the money saving aspect. Concerns have been raised by many that the calculations haven’t been done and that the cuts in legal aid and amends in civil litigation will cost more than they save. A report by King’s College London identifies that “these changes will incur new costs for the taxpayer by simply shifting the burden onto other parts of the public purse.”

In another academic report, Dr McIvor, Senior Lecturer at Birmingham Law School, accused the reforms of being “excessive and over-zealous”. She advised that “the evidence does not necessarily demonstrate that the primary source of the current high level of costs is the recoverability of success fees and after-the-event insurance premiums.”

What is also surprising about the Bill is the lack of joined up thinking in the government. With Clarke, together with his counterpart, Eric Pickles, continually following the party line about saving money (Guardian article: Eric Pickles: council tax rise a 'kick in the teeth' for cash-strapped residents), if the Bill is passed and legislation implemented then Council Tax will increase. The reason for this is quite simple. Unlike the present system where Local Authorities can recover their legal costs when they successfully defend a claim, under the new proposed system, they will not unless the case is deemed to be fraudulent or frivolous, which is extremely difficult to prove. This Bill is leaving Local Authorities will their hands tied behind their back. One the one hand they will want to defend cases, but on the other they know that if they do they won’t recover costs. Claims won’t reduce, so compensation payments by local authorities will increase, meaning only one thing, a cut in services or an increase in the Council Tax.

With the report stage to come and many amendments expected to be tabled by the Lords to all sections of the Bill, the fight is not yet over for those battling for and most importantly against the LASPO Bill.