An Often Overlooked Coverage - The Legal Expense Policy w/ Richard Tino Commercial Account Executive
Updated: Feb 1, 2022
Last month’s article broke down the main policies a transportation company typically requires to be road ready.
Once compliant, the intrinsic desire to pursue additional insurance diminishes, and companies often overlook one of the most valuable lines of coverage; the legal expense policy.
Providing legal advice and protection for legal costs at a bargain price, the legal expense policy gives your business the liberty to pursue your legal rights in specific circumstances around contract disputes, debt recovery, employee disputes, statutory license protection, allegations of criminal offence, property protection, bodily injury, and protection against income and payroll compliance audits.
In most industries, the cost of legal expense is determined by revenue size. With regards to transportation, premium is determined by the number of power units owned and the operations of the company. Starting as low as $205 dollars per truck annually, the coverage would provide defense and cover legal costs when appealing certain prosecutions against your company such as road offences, driver and/or business license suspensions, logbook and service hour infractions, or wrongful dismissal.
Additionally, your company would be able to exercise its legal right to pursue payment for a completed job or service, physical damage to your property, bodily injury done to you or your employees, and more.
If your driver faces prosecution or license suspension for road offences like failing to complete a logbook for the last few days of hauling, speeding, distracted driving or even weigh scale offenses, the legal expense policy would appoint legal representation to negotiate with prosecutors in attempt to withdrawal the offence.
Furthermore, if you have a contract dispute relating to the purchase, sale, rent or faulty repair of your power unit or trailer, the policy will facilitate a lawyer and cover the legal costs to negotiate a refund for the financial damages associated. With the average hourly fee of an attorney ranging from $100 to $400 dollars, the legal expense policy has the potential for huge savings just on legal costs alone.
Adding even more value, the legal expense policy also provides unlimited access to a legal helpline of lawyers for confidential general advice on any legal problem affecting your business. They even provide guidance specific to the laws of the applicable province or territory and the federal laws of Canada. Providing immediate help to determine one’s legal rights and options, it’s like having legal counsel on retainer at the fraction of the price.
If a legal dispute would have a tangible impact on the finances of your company, then you can’t afford not to have legal expense insurance. Still, many companies in transportation and other industries have yet to discover the value of this policy. These benefits have the potential to directly save companies thousands of dollars in legal costs, but indirectly as well by keeping rigs on the road when faced with suspensions, fines, and payment disputes.
For more information or assistance obtaining a legal expense policy, please reach out at trucking@ligroup.ca
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