LEGAL PLAN BENEFITS: A HUGE REASON TO GET AN ESTATE PLAN
In the last decade or so, legal plan benefits have become very popular in Corporate America. One of the most popular uses for legal plan benefits is to create an estate plan for you and your family.
WHAT ARE LEGAL PLAN BENEFITS?
Legal plan benefits are a benefit offered through some employers which allow the recipient / employee to hire a lawyer to resolve a legal issue at a greatly reduced cost and sometimes free of charge.
HOW MUCH ARE LEGAL PLAN BENEFITS?
Legal plan benefits can vary in cost. Often employees pay a fixed cost each pay check. Some companies offer different coverage levels at different costs and still other companies offer them as a free benefit to their employees. Contact you Human Resources Department for further details about legal plan benefits through your company.
CAN THEY COVER FAMILY MEMBERS AND THEIR LEGAL MATTERS?
It depends on your employer’s plan. The benefits almost always cover immediate family members and other dependents. Less often they cover extended family, for example the parents of a benefit recipient.
DO THEY COVER ESTATE PLANNING?
Yes and as an estate plan attorney O’Fallon our offices have helped many families who receive legal plan benefits to create estate plans. In fact, creating an estate plan is among the most popular uses of legal plan benefits.
ARE ATTORNEY SERVICES UNDER LEGAL PLAN BENEFITS JUST AS GOOD AS PRIVATELY PAID?
Yes and there should be no difference if a client is paying a lawyer directly for legal help or is receiving payment from legal plan benefits. Our office, in fact, makes no distinction between legal plan clients and private pay clients. The process is the same and so is the attention level to their matter. I suspect that’s why our office has had so many legal plan clients.
DO LEGAL PLAN BENEFITS PAY ATTORNEYS AS MUCH AS PRIVATE PAY CLIENTS?
No. Service fees are reduced significantly to the attorney.
IF SERVICE FEES ARE REDUCED, HOW DO LEGAL PLAN BENEFIT PLANS HELP LAWYERS?
There are several advantages. For one thing, we are often reaching clients who would not call us without having the benefits. The best example would be a young couple calling to create an estate plan. Many of our legal plan clients are in fact younger. So we capture a different age demographic of clients that we ordinarily would not work with. Also, there is no outbound cost to our firm to acquire legal plan clients. For example, no advertising cost is required. To some lawyers, the reduced fees are too low and they do not participate in the plans.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE LEGAL PLAN BENEFIT COMPANIES?
The most popular legal plan benefit company is Hyatt Legal. Another company is ARAG. Finally, a less popular but good legal plan benefit company is LegalShield. Legacy Law Center works with each of these legal plan benefit companies and considers each to be very good.
ANY ADVICE ON USING LEGAL PLAN BENEFITS?
Yes. Treat the research you are doing on various law firms and attorneys who can handle the legal plan benefit work you need just as if you were paying out of pocket. Educate yourself on what you need, review the ratings and websites of lawyers. Don’t just pick a lawyer because his or her office is down the street. Also, check to make sure that the particular service you need is something they do a lot of…believe it or not there are still a lot of “general practice” attorneys practicing law.
Legacy Law Center assists legal plan recipients throughout St. Charles County, St. Louis County, Warren County and Lincoln County. If you have a legal plan through your employer, call our firm for a FREE CONSULTATION to learn how we can help. Call us today at (636) 486-2669!
