With the legal expenses insurance, insurers offer many Dutch people affordable access to legal assistance in preventing and resolving conflicts and disputes. Every year, insurers help more than 400,000 customers, including in the areas of employment, income, consumer law and traffic accidents.
Most insurers allow you to take out legal expenses insurance. However, many insurers do not carry out legal assistance themselves, but work with a permanent contractor. Who this executor is is always stated in the policy conditions. There are three types of legal aid providers active in the Netherlands:
This page is also about insurers, but this also refers to administrators.
The legal expenses insurance is an in-kind insurance. This means that the insurer's own lawyers provide legal assistance. The customer cannot engage his own legal representative without consultation with the insurer and without prior permission and submit the invoice to the insurer. By working with our own lawyers and lawyers, there is a grip on quality and insurers limit costs, so that the insurance premium remains affordable.
It is possible that the insurer outsources a file to another legal service provider. For example, because there is insufficient capacity at the contractor or because he or she does not have sufficient expertise about the dispute. To this end, the insurer works together with so-called network offices. The insurer makes fixed price and quality agreements with these offices. The network office must meet the same quality requirements as the insurer's own employees.
If there is a legal or administrative procedure, the insurer will contact the customer to tell him how he wants to help them. The insurer will therefore point out to the client that he may choose a legal expert who works at another firm. This is called the free choice of legal counsellor (VKR and popularly known as free choice of lawyer). In such a case, an insurer will reimburse the costs up to a maximum amount. These amounts can vary per insurer and expert. This is stated in the policy conditions.
Often, the customer can opt for a higher maximum reimbursement by paying a higher premium. If a lawyer is required for the dispute (litigation monopoly cases), the insurer will reimburse a higher fee than if the dispute can also be resolved by a (private) lawyer.
As a result, the insurance premium remains affordable and legal assistance is accessible to as large a group of Dutch people as possible.
On average, clients rate the quality of services provided by legal aid providers very positively. All legal expenses insurers and administrators must comply with the requirements of the Legal Aid Quality Code of the Dutch Association of Insurers. This sets out the obligations that a legal expenses insurer has towards the client. If a customer is dissatisfied with the insurer's legal assistance, they can take the following actions:
Access to justice is essential in a democratic state governed by the rule of law. Dutch citizens who are legally
who need advice or assistance in proceedings, and are unable to afford a lawyer or mediator, are entitled to reimbursement of costs. In addition, they can seek advice from the Legal Desk. Collectively, these provisions are referred to as subsidised legal aid.
The government has asked a committee to investigate the rising costs of
subsidised legal aid. In order to keep this system of subsidised legal aid affordable and future-proof, Minister Dekker sent a letter to the House of Representatives at the end of 2018 outlining the contours for the revision of subsidised legal aid. The minister wants other legal service providers (in addition to the legal profession) to be allowed to offer legal assistance through so-called legal aid packages. To gain experience with this, pilots will be carried out in the near future.
Legal expenses insurers play an important role in making legal aid accessible and affordable, but are not a party to the current system for subsidised legal aid. At the moment, only lawyers carry out government-funded legal aid. At the request of Minister Dekker, the Association participates in consultations on the revision of the system, together with other representatives of legal aid providers (lawyers, mediators). In addition, LegalGuard (part of Achmea) is currently running a pilot in which LegalGuard's lawyers provide legal assistance.
An important starting point for the review of subsidised legal aid is to resolve disputes at an early stage – before they escalate – and in an accessible manner. This can be done, among other things, by organising low-threshold facilities in the neighbourhood. If more specialist help is needed, referrals can be made to providers of legal aid packages. This makes a wider range of legal service providers available to resolve disputes in an adequate, effective and affordable manner.
Insurers support this approach. It is a good thing that a wide range of legal service providers can be involved in the provision of subsidised legal aid by offering legal aid packages. Quality assurance is, of course, of great importance. The contours of the new system will be further fleshed out through various pilots and in further consultation with stakeholders, including legal expenses insurers. It is very important that this interpretation of the plans is done carefully. The method of gaining experience with new working methods through pilots is ideally suited to map out the various effects. We think it is important that everyone in the Netherlands retains access to justice and that the new system guarantees this.
Four legal expenses insurers and six law firms, affiliated with the Specialist Association of Social Security Law Lawyers, are starting a one-year joint pilot in which insurers outsource legal expenses files to law firms.
Insurers are more likely to outsource cases to law firms with which they often collaborate. What is unique about this pilot is that the collaboration consists of several legal expenses insurers and offices. The participating parties have made agreements about quality, time allocation and costs. The intention is for the participating insurers to transfer 75 files to the law firms during the pilot.
The aim of the pilot for the participants is, among other things, to gain more insight into the type of case, the legal aid to be provided and the time spent. In addition, by collecting this data, participants establish a definition of quality and reasonable costs in these types of cases on which there is consensus between the two. A result of this pilot could be that the results can be used as best practices: assistance to clients in other SZ cases and to the legal profession. Participants both measure the quality of the legal aid provided in the pilot cases, for example by means of customer satisfaction surveys and peer reviews.
After one year, the participants will evaluate the pilot and decide whether or not the pilot will go ahead and, if so, in what form. In the meantime, the participants will evaluate the progress of the pilot.
Participating insurers
ARAG, DAS, Stichting Achmea Rechtsbijstand and Univé.
Participating law firms
Strix Advocaten in Groningen, Westhoff Advocaten in Amsterdam, JLM Advocaten in Arnhem, Centrum Advocaten in Almelo, Oudegracht Advocaten in Alkmaar and Zumpolle Advocaten in Utrecht.