Legal insurance includes waiting periods to prevent coverage of pre-existing legal issues. Waiting durations vary by plan and type of legal matter, ranging from no waiting period to up to five years for some areas. Insurance coverage applies only to legal issues arising after the waiting period and must be obtained before any legal problem occurs.
What are waiting periods in legal insurance?
Waiting periods in legal insurance are time intervals that must pass after purchasing a policy before coverage applies. They prevent misuse of insurance by ensuring coverage only applies to unexpected legal issues that arise after the waiting period, not to issues known or anticipated before purchasing the policy.
Why can’t I buy legal insurance after a problem start, and what’s the point of a waiting period?
Legal insurance is designed to protect you from unexpected legal issues that may arise in the future, not ones that have already happened.
This is similar to how car insurance works. If you get into an accident while uninsured, you can’t buy insurance afterward and expect it to cover the damage. Legal insurance follows the same principle: you can’t use it to pay for a problem that already exists when you sign up.
To support this, most legal insurance plans include a waiting period, a set amount of time after your policy begins during which you can’t make claims. This helps keep the insurance system fair and financially stable by preventing people from only signing up when they already know they need legal help.
In short:
You need to be insured before a legal problem begins.
Waiting periods help ensure coverage is used for truly unforeseen issues, just like any other kind of insurance.
How long are the waiting periods for different types of legal issues?
Waiting periods vary by legal issue type and whether you have a Basic or Advanced legal insurance plan. Please refer the chart below for a general overview:
| Basic | Advanced |
Personal |
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|
Contract | 6 months | No waiting period |
Social law | No waiting period | No waiting period |
Administrative law | 6 months | 3 months |
Family, civil partnership, and inheritance law | 1 year | 1 year |
University admissions | Not covered | 5 years |
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|
|
Professional |
|
|
Professional law | 6 months | 3 months |
|
|
|
Traffic |
|
|
Contract, administration, and traffic offenses | No waiting period | No waiting period |
|
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|
Home |
|
|
Contract and property law | 6 months | 3 months |
|
|
|
Criminal | No waiting period | No waiting period |
Can I make a claim retroactively for an issue that started during the waiting period?
No. Legal insurance coverage does not include legal issues that began before purchasing the policy or during the waiting period. You must have active coverage before a legal issue arises. Issues or incidents that happened before obtaining insurance or during waiting periods are not covered.
If I downgrade/upgrade my legal insurance plan, do the waiting periods start over?
No, waiting periods are always counted from the original start date of your legal insurance, even if you change plans later. This means any time you’ve already waited still counts, and waiting periods do not reset.
That said, if you change your plan (for example, from Advanced to Basic), the coverage rules and waiting periods of the new plan will apply. The waiting period itself is still calculated from your original policy start date.
Example:
If your legal insurance started on February 1, 2026, and the Basic plan has a six-month waiting period for employment law, coverage for employment-related disputes would begin on August 1, 2026. Even if you downgrade during that time.