Page 104 - Hollard Private Portfolio - Version 3.5

102 Hollard Private Portfolio – Version 3.5 – 7 May 2024
Legal costs
You must obey the claims settlement rules
○ You must only accept a settlement with our written permission. This includes:
– Payment into court or tender; and
– Withdrawing any action with each party being responsible for its own legal costs.
○ We will not regard a matter as settled until the action or defence is formally withdrawn, or a settlement
agreement is made an order of the court.
○ If you do not accept the first amount offered by a third party, we will not pay any legal costs after the date of
the offer. This condition applies if the offer you rejected is equal to or more than:
– The final offer you do accept; or
– The amount awarded by the court.
You must tell us of appeal or review proceedings
You must tell us if your attorney decides to proceed with appeal or review proceedings after the outcome of a civil or
labour matter.
We may recover legal expenses
○ This section of the policy is ceded to us and we have the right to any payment claimed by you against either:
– A party for recovery of legal expenses which we paid to you.
– Your attorney for wasted legal costs or unnecessary legal expenses.
○ You must assist us through your attorney, for the recovery and refund to us of any costs paid to you as part of
the settlement.
○ Any costs recovered (as ordered by the court against the losing party), will first be used to refund us for any
claims paid.
○ We may, without acquiring any liability or in any way lessening our rights, take legal action in your name to
recover or contribute to a claim.
We reserve the right to decide if your claim is justified
We may reject your claim if the legal costs exceed the potential financial value.
Limitations to what we will pay
○ The maximum limit per claim is shown in your policy schedule.
○ We will not cover more than one claim at a time for the same matter, but we will cover more than one claim at
a time for different matters.
○ If you have more than one insurance policy in place that covers you for legal costs, the full amount of the claim
will be split proportionally between the different policies.
– The cover you have under each policy will determine how we split the claim amount.
– If you claim from us, you may not also claim from the other insurer, and if you claim from the other
insurer, you may not also claim from us.
– If you claim from us, we may settle your claim in one of the following ways:
▪ We may pay the full claim amount to you and recover from the other insurer the part of the
claim which they are responsible for.
▪ We may pay only our part of the claim to you and arrange with the other insurer to pay their
part of the claim directly to you.
– Whichever option we decide on, we will pay back the part of the premiums received which relates to
the other insurer’s part of the claim, but only in respect of premiums received for three years before
the date of the claim.
– It is the other insurer’s responsibility to refund the premiums you paid to them relating to our portion
of the claim, and you will have to contact the other insurer directly for a refund.