Is a Pre Paid Legal service a scam?

A few people in the USA have made it known that they think any type of pre-paid legal advice service is a scam and that gradually this scam has inched its way into the survival kits of over one million individuals and families throughout America.


Here's how Prepaid Legal Services might considered a scam!

It looks like typical home or auto insurance provision - offering you something you hope you'll never need, but if you did need it, it could be a huge expense all at once. In other words, pay a little each month now in case you need to cough up huge amounts later.

However, if it were a scam (and some schemes have been in the past), you would be unlikely to get reputable lawyers to put their careers on the line for such relatively small amounts. Think hard how being revealed as part of a 'take your money and offer limited or no services in return' scheme would affect lawyers in the long term. None of them would do it, unless they were particularly small minded or greedy - And they wouldn't last long!

So participation for those lawyers in such a prepaid legal scam could mean immediate disbarment, as well as severe reputation damage. Not something any lawyer needs, especially in already troubled times. No matter what the industry there will always have been some complaints, but consider that $20 - $40 a month wouldn't even cover the lawyer retainer fee let alone the research and representation required for court appearances.

What I'm pointing out here is that paying now to protect you and your loved ones from unforeseeable legal situations cannot be considered a scam. If all of the prepaid legal services were scams they would have been caught and closed out by the government a long time ago.

We all hope to never have to use our house insurance and we always cringe at the thought of having to call our broker or provider because our flooding, but we couldn't actually imagine not having the financial protection that insurance provides. We pay and pay but seldom get any benefit from it.

One should treat a prepaid legal plan as a near essential because you would use it far more frequently than you would a car or home payout. If gambling paying a small amount now against paying a large amount later the pre paid legal advice should surely be seen as good a bet as any other insurance scheme. Dying is your only sure thing for getting your cash back out of a life insurance plan and you won't see the benefit of that for yourself, so why not invest in something you will almost certainly use and see the results of.