Legal Expense Insurance – Watch Out!!!

You may or may not have heard of Legal Expense Insurance; your insurance company may offer it as part of your insurance cover on your car. But whatever you do, don’t pay for it!

Basically it is a service that insurance companies offer that is nothing more than a sham! What happens is, if you have had an accident and you report it through to your insurance company, they will most probably try to persuade you to place a claim with them for any personal injuries you may have sustained. I would strongly advise that you don’t place a claim for personal injury with them; this is because you will straight away lose money. Claims companies and Insurance companies are not equipped to deal with personal injury claims; it’s solicitors who can only deal with these claims efficiently.
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How Common Are Accidents at Work?

They are a lot more common that you might think! Which is surprising given that the rules and regulations employers must adhere to are strict and numerous to protect the safety of the employees in their working environment. So here’s a little insight in to why employers fail to adhere to regulations (leaving them open to a claim against them), and what employers are expected to do:

Well, perhaps it’s a lack of understanding of the importance of health and safety regulations in the workplace that is a root cause. There are common duties that all employers must ensure to uphold; such as ensuring all access ways are free from hazard (e.g. no holes in the floor!!!), ensuring all electrical equipment is duly tested for safety (e.g. no explosive kettles!), or even employees being trained and instructed on the buildings fire procedures. So what kind of rules and regulations must employers adhere to?
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European Doctors: Safe to Practice in UK?

The recent case of Dr. Daniel Ubani is still fresh in many people’s minds. To recap, he was a German locum GP who inadvertently injected a 70 year old patient with over ten times the safe amount of diamorphine; a strong painkiller, resulting in their death. Not so well known is the fact that he is still practicing medicine in Germany, despite the seemingly clear case of negligence. Dr Ubani avoided a manslaughter prosecution in the UK as he had already been convicted in a German court of law, finding him guilty of death by negligence and giving him a nine-month suspended sentence.

In a similar case, a German surgeon, Werner Kolb, operated on a 92 year old lady during a routine hip procedure. He had been employed by the Lincolnshire Trust as holiday cover for one of their surgeons. As European law stipulates that Medical qualifications must be accepted at face value, no further checks were performed. During the operation, he strayed into a danger area and severed an artery, causing the patient to lose over 2 litres of blood. The patient was left bed bound by the operation and subsequently died of pneumonia.
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Taxi Accidents

Have you recently had an accident in a taxi? Perhaps your child has been in an accident in a Taxi? Providing the accident was in no way any fault of your own, you may have a potential claim for compensation. This is because, in the eyes of the law, the passenger(s) involved in an accident in most circumstances are completely innocent party; this should mean if you chose to go ahead and make a claim for compensation, your claim should be quite straight forward.

If you have a child under the age of eighteen, they will require a Litigation Friend to represent them for the claim; this is usually a parent or guardian who will act on behalf of the child with their best interests in mind. A person under the age of eighteen usually doesn’t have the necessary skills or abilities to deal with such circumstances, so the litigation friend is able to make the claim on their behalf.  For any settlement sum that is recovered for the child, it will be stored in a trust fund held by the court until the victim reaches the age of 18.
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