Legal Shield - worth it?

Discuss the 2nd Amendment and issues that relate to our right to keep and bear arms.
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tlieberman240
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Re: Legal Shield - worth it?

#16

Post by tlieberman240 »

Flash wrote: September 7th, 2020, 1:35 pm
Okay, let's do the math.

You pay $180.00/year for CCW insurance. You pay in 30 years and so you've paid in $5,400.00. The insurance company's total profit for 30 years not counting administrative costs is $400.00. Essentially a break even and Insurance companies don't get in the business for such trivial amounts.

You pay $2,000.00/year for auto insurance. You pay 30 years and you've paid in $60,000.00. You get in a wreck and because the car is 5 years old they give you $30K for it. Total profit $30K. Definitely worth doing especially with large amounts of customers.

Whole different thing.
Lol I'm not sure where you're getting the numbers for "administrative costs" or why you're factoring it in for one, but not the other; but ok.

Take into consideration the risk factor difference between the possibility of an auto collision vs the possibility of being involved in a shooting that requires legal representation.

Statistics show (from 2018) a 1 in 6 chance of death by heart disease (for comparison) and a 1 in 108 chance of death by MVA (motor vehicle accident). For those MVA incidents, all of them (95% or more) will include some use of autmotive insurance; and those are JUST the deaths. There's over 6 million car accidents every year with nearly 230 million livensed drivers in the US. Again, pretty much all of them will involve insurance.

Death by firearms are listed at 1 of 315, meaning the chance of a violent encounter with the use of a firearm is already much lower. As is the chance that an individual defending themselves even has insurance. As is the chance they even need to use it, and require legal representation. The list goes on. Depending on which statistics you believe, there's between 500,000 and 3 million self defense uses of firearms every year with 393 million guns in the country (more than the population of the whole country *HELL YES!*). But how many of those people even have the insurance? And how many of them (who do have insurance) will even be in a self defense scenario? And how many of those will actually need the use of legal representation; let alone to the max allotted coverage for their policy?

USCCA is a pretty well respected organization and their cheapest plan comes out to $250/yr for $500k in civil defense & damages protection, as well as $100k in criminal defense, bail bond, and retainer; with additional policies available at higher rates with higher rates of coverage.

Point is, the chance of somebody having to use the insurance for self defense is FAR lower than the chance of needing to use auto insurance. I'm sure there are plenty of caveats and "fine print" instances that need to be reviewed, but I don't doubt that people have used these and/or similar policies for legal representation, and have done so without having to pull teeth to get the company to fulfill their obligation.

It's like people selling volcano insurance to residents in Southern California lol. Obviously a bit of an exaggeration, but the point is many many people who have such insurance will never need it. People will need to make, on an individual level, if it makes sense for them to have such insurance for themselves.

To me, it is. To others, maybe not so much. That's fine. Hopefully nobody here will need to use it. Given the current state of discourse in this country, I'd rather have and not need....


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Flash
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Re: Legal Shield - worth it?

#17

Post by Flash »

Okay, it's your money.

BTW, if you read carefully, you'll note I put in $0.00 for administrative costs even though they're a very real factor for companies.

A G&A figure under 20% is unbelievably cheap and it's likely to be more.
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timelinex
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Re: Legal Shield - worth it?

#18

Post by timelinex »

Has anyone actually used any of these policies and has real life experiences with them?

My concern is the same as many others. It's all good on the front end, but when you need to use it for anything serious they find a loophole to get out of it. I'm not talking about cheap things like asking attorneys questions, but actual court cases or payouts that the insurance company had to pay more than some petty amount.
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SecretV
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Re: Legal Shield - worth it?

#19

Post by SecretV »

If you're well off enough to have a legal team or have someone on retainer you probably can't be bothered with legal insurance. If you're active duty, first responder, or fortunate enough that your company covers any of the basic legal things they'd do for you. You might be less likely to consider having them.

If you don't have other avenues of legal assistance and your job provides the plan economically...why not. I think my job charges the equivalent of 2 monsters a month or something for it. Another reason to buy one of these policies or into one of these memberships is that in theory you have a network of legal professionals to chose from. If that's true it saves you a lot of time sifting through and calling lawyers that will tell you they don't handle the type of law you need assistance with. Remember it doesn't help if your family member is a lawyer if they don't specialize in the specific legal field you need assistance in or if they aren't authorized to practice in your state.

Last I recall the legal shield plan at my last job covered only stuff that hadn't occurred prior to the purchase of the plan. Reading the fine print is important. The things you'll end up using Legal Shield for are, wills, powers of attorney, title. Looking at their site it looks like they've expanded into gun related items. A coworker at my last job used them to help them navigate a sticky federal/state taxes situation. Another co worker at the same job got a lawyer through the plan that pissed off the judge on a traffic citation...needless to say he had to pay the citation and sit through the embarrassing ordeal. YMMV. Any of the items mentioned in this paragraph could definitely add up if you used your own lawyer that would charge you between 150-300 dollars an hour. Don't forget there are also filing fees, are these items covered with Legal Shield?

I have USCCA for carry insurance. I have a family member that practices law out of Texas and I asked them how much it would cost if I drew and shot someone in Texas. They said I'd probably be looking at 50k to start. Some of the carry plans have "value added" materials. For a newbie into carrying guns some of those are actually valuable. How to communicate with police. Basic firearms training and safety information. Examples of legal cases in which lethal force or the threat of lethal force was used and the outcomes.
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oldslurrydog1
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Re: Legal Shield - worth it?

#20

Post by oldslurrydog1 »

Racewin wrote: August 28th, 2020, 2:45 pm Anyone here use it or know someone that does? Is it worth the $25/month?
Better half and I have it and have used it. It has been a good policy to have.
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AZ Husker
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Re: Legal Shield - worth it?

#21

Post by AZ Husker »

If you're paying $2000 a year on auto insurance it might be time to shop around! There is a huge difference between criminal and civil cases. I'm betting I don't cross the criminal line, but to cover my assets I have a million dollar personal liability umbrella policy that does cover justified self defense. Costs me $110/year and it covers all liability, not just gun related.
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Racewin
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Re: Legal Shield - worth it?

#22

Post by Racewin »

AZ Husker wrote: February 10th, 2021, 5:11 pm If you're paying $2000 a year on auto insurance it might be time to shop around! There is a huge difference between criminal and civil cases. I'm betting I don't cross the criminal line, but to cover my assets I have a million dollar personal liability umbrella policy that does cover justified self defense. Costs me $110/year and it covers all liability, not just gun related.
Through Legal Shield?
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AZ Husker
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Re: Legal Shield - worth it?

#23

Post by AZ Husker »

Through my auto & home insurance.
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