This is a brief outline of what Uninsured Loss Recovery (ULR) is, and a historical model to highlight the gradual evolution of the provision of accident related services to the motorist.

Before we move on, a brief reiteration of what is meant by ULR would probably be useful:

Your own motor insurance is primarily for the damage you do to other people hence the description of the most basic form of motor insurance as being "third party" insurance.

The only exception to car insurance being for the damage you do to other people is a policy of fully comprehensive car insurance where the insurance will pay for the damage to your own car regardless of fault.

The upshot of what is described above is that where your vehicle is involved in a collision with another vehicle that isn't your fault then any recompense to which you are entitled as a result of the accident has to be claimed from the other drivers insurer. This can be anything from the excess on your own motor policy to damages for personal injuries.

Put another way, even if an accident is not your fault the only thing your own insurance will cover is the repairs to your vehicle but only if your policy is fully comp. As all of your losses, expenses and damages have to be recovered from the other drivers insurers not from your own they are referred to as Uninsured Losses (UL).

The R in ULR stands for Recovery and therefore ULR is the process of a motorist recovering from the other driver's insurers their losses, expenses and damages.


These are a variety of products or schemes designed to assist the motorist in recovering their uninsured losses in the event of their involvement in a non fault accident.

To fully appreciate what modern schemes do for the motorist it is very instructive to go back to a time when such schemes did not exist. Many years ago when, for example, my father drove an Anglia, motor insurance would invariably have been purchased from a high street broker. If you were involved in an accident, even one that wasn't your fault, the service that you received from your broker would be very much dependent on luck. Some insurance brokers, to provide a good customer service, might assist in some way in recovering their customer's uninsured losses.

If you were unlucky enough to be injured in the accident your Broker may have had a pal who was a Solicitor and therefore might have referred you to the Solicitor to pursue a compensation claim. In the era we are talking about there was no such thing as "no win, no fee, agreements" therefore unless you qualified for legal aid you would have to have paid your Solicitor. The usual arrangement was that you paid your Solicitor as you went along but most of those fees were recovered from the other side if your claim were successful.

Some bright spark had a very clever idea to assist the motorist. The idea was that a scheme would be set up that motorists could pay a fee to join. If the member was involved in an accident the scheme would deal with all of the recovery of the motorist uninsured losses including the appointment of a Solicitor if the motorist was injured and to pursue any claims for damages.

Membership of such a scheme was marketed through the insurance brokers who were able to offer their customers a comprehensive and consistent service when they were involved in an accident. The provision of membership was also a source of revenue to the broker as they could a mark up the cost of the membership.

Over time the companies providing the ULR services to motorists have become very substantial businesses providing a very sophisticated range of services to the motorists. ULR products are now routinely available as an add on to motor insurance policies available from brokers and the insurers who now sell their products direct to the motorist.

Modern Day Uninsured Losses Recovery

One development that illustrates the contrast between the past and the present in terms of benefits to the motorist is the provision of replacement vehicles.

I first started as a solicitor dealing with road traffic accidents many years ago when ULR schemes were very much in their infancy. If one of my clients was involved in an accident that wasn't their fault they might find that they were without the use of their vehicle for a prolonged period. The advice in those early days was that the client should rent a car if they needed one and the cost of the rental would be recovered as part of their claim for uninsured losses from the other driver's insurers. The problem was that the client would have to pay "up front" for the hire car and it might be some time till they got the cost back.

Again, another bright spark had a great idea. This is the idea that a car hire company provides a replacement vehicle to a motorist involved in a non fault accident but the company itself then recovers the cost of the hire from the other drivers' insurers thus saving the motorist from being out of pocket.

These companies are called credit hire companies and like the ULR companies have grown enormously in size and sophistication over the years. The bigger credit hire companies have fleets of thousands of vehicles enabling them to provide a very wide range of vehicles so the motorist gets the nearest possible match to their own vehicle be that a car, van, light commercial vehicle or motorbike.

To complete the picture, over the years ULR companies acquired credit hire companies and/or credit hire companies started to offer a full ULR function to its customers. Whilst not always the case, the two entities have become one and the same.

Having been a Solicitor in private practice for a long time I have been able to see not only the rise of ULR services available to the motorist but also see the benefits of such schemes to the motorist. Whilst the ULR industry has become a huge profitable industry the benefit to the ordinary motorist is also huge. The service now available to the motorist is hundreds of times better than the situation when my father drove his Anglia or indeed since I first started in legal practice.


How does One1one Accident Aftercare fit into this picture? Our product is a ULR scheme but one that grew out of many years experience as a Solicitor dealing with such schemes. Not all ULR products are sourced from a broker or insurer and indeed there is no reason why such products have to be an 'add on' to an insurance policy.

A ULR product sourced from a broker or insurer will generally cost between ﾣ15 and ﾣ25 per vehicle per year. By going back to the roots of ULR schemes where the emphasis is on the motorist as the member of a scheme with membership being for the person not an individual vehicle. In this way we are able to provide the motorist with all the benefits of the very best ULR scheme for all their vehicles at a much reduced cost.

The motorist pays a one off membership fee with free renewal after 12 months and membership covers not only all their vehicles but those of the rest of their household as well. As the service is much cheaper does it mean the service is inferior to that available from a broker or insurer? The answer is emphatically no. We have the option to use any ULR company as the provider of our services. This enables us to choose the company who we believe gives the very best services for our members. We have also used our knowledge of the legal market place to choose the best law firms to provide a full regional service. In this way we can ensure that if a member needs the services of a Solicitor not only will it be a firm with proven expertise in this type of work but also in the members region.

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