A Study Of Legal Expenses Insurance Institution

Legal expenses insurance means the insured buys specific policies and pays the premium in advance,and if the insured is involved in a lawsuit,the insurer would pay the insured legal costs,including court fees and lawyer fees.It relieves the contradiction between increasing lawsuits and limited legal resources,ensures the fulfillment of people's right to take lawsuit,and allocates the legal resources reasonably.So in recent years,some scholars have advocated introducing legal expenses insurance institution,which is popular in Europe,into our country.Though the advantages of legal expenses insurance institution in both theory and practice,it is not easy to be established in our country.Simple transplant of the institution cannot solve all the matters.So,before introducing legal expenses insurance institution,we should study it more carefully,especially the social environment under which it is operated,and compare the ideal social environment with ours,such as our own cultural idea,our legal system at present,the insurance market levels and so on.This essay is divided into five parts together with an introduction and a conclusion.Chapter one is a general overview of legal expenses insurance institution.In this chapter,we introduce the concept,the history and the classification of legal expenses insurance in details,and analyze the necessary elements of legal expenses insurance;we also give a brief introduction of legal expenses insurance practices abroad.Chapter two compares legal expenses insurance with legal aid and contingent fees.We find that though all the institutions can help resolving the problem of the underprivileged people's access to justice,the scope of application of legal expenses insurance institution and the source of funding for it are even wider.Chapter three reviews the different developments of legal expenses insurance institution in four countries.We learn that the establishment and development of legal expenses insurance institution is related to the market situation of a country and the well function of it is bounded to the judicial policies and needs support from the government.In chapter four,we analyze the costs of introducing legal expenses insurance institution into China.We discuss the ideal circumstances of legal expenses insurance institution and compare them with that of our country,reaching a conclusion that it is feasible to introduce the institution.Chapter five puts forward some suggestions for China's adoption of legal expenses insurance institution,including the setup of insurance policies,the general regulation of legal expenses insurance,and the supplementary measures and so on, based on the actual conditions of our country.