Lee Poulson   Health Coach
I hear advertisements on the radio all the time for Legal Zoom.
I don’t have a will yet but it’s something I need to do.
What is the difference between Pre Paid and Legal Zoom?

Nov 25th 2007 16:58   

Cheryl Baumgartner   Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
Legal Zoom is more of a document provider. They give you the documents and you fill them out. Prepaid legal Services gives you a provider law firm. We encourage our members to use the service as often as they can not just when they have a crisis. PPL gives you 7 areas of coverage under our Family plan:
Preventive-covers questions, contract and document review, living wills and medical directives, wills(updates yearly)

Tax- W-2 tax returns and legal representation for audits

Motor Vehicle- Moving traffic violations and tragic accident (attorney fees covered on criminal charges such as manslaughter win, lose or draw from time of accident until cleared by the court)

Civil and job related suits (up to 75 hours of attorneys time prepaid)

Member discounts-25% discount on standard fees for anything not covered in the other areas including pre-existing conditions

Legal Shield- Emergency access to legal counsel 24 hours if questioned, detained, arrested, served with a warrant, if Child Protective Services intends to remove children from your home or if you are involved in an accident with injuries

Identity theft Shield Total restoration service in the event of Identity theft, continuous credit monitoring, Immediate notification. Bu identity we mean not just your finances but also your Driver's license, social security number, medical history and your character(criminal history)

The biggest difference between PPL and a document provider is that rather than you having a forms to fill out your will is drawn up by an attorney. You have the expertise of attorneys specializing in each area of law to advise you. Laws are constantly challenged and updated, an attorney must be current with the law. The basic code of whatever type of law they practice can fill a set of encyclopedias. (The Florida Criminal Code by itself has over 970 statutes not counting all the sub-paragraphs and sub-sections)

Also, Legalese is a very specific language. Something as trivial as the placement of a comma can change the meaning of the document from what you intended to something completely different. Lawyers will pick up on the things that we miss because they are well versed in the language.

Think about it this way. If you have a medical textbook, that does not qualify you to practice medicine. Having pre-printed legal documents does not qualify you to practice law either. PPL does not expect you to practice law, we provide you affordable access to those who do. We have plans starting a low as $26.95 per month with identity theft coverage. We also have other specialty plans for Business owners, self employed, commercial truck drivers, law enforcement and teachers.

Nov 25th 2007 18:30   

Lee Poulson   Health Coach
How do we know we are covered in our area?
Or, if we have a problem, is there an attorney in our area to represent us?

Nov 25th 2007 18:45   

Cheryl Baumgartner   Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
Each state has a provider law firm dedicated to the members in that state. There is also a network of local attorneys if you need an attorney locally. All of our firms are held to stringent customer service requirements and all of our local participating attorneys must pass stringent requirements also.

Our corporate office does spot checks on our law firms and local attorneys. We use the provider law firm system so that we can control the quality of service and make sure that are members are treated right. In the beginning we had the pick your own attorney system and it almost killed us. We could not control the quality of the attorneys, ensure that members were not overcharged. It's much easier this way to provide all of our members with the best legal advice and assistance possible.
Nov 25th 2007 19:17   

Cheryl Baumgartner   Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
As I stated we have specialty plans also

Law Officers Legal Plan- Designed to cover the special needs of our men and women in blue. All law enforcement officers Federal,state and local are eligible. This plan provide 24 hour access for on duty issues.

Teachers plan-All educators are covered by this plan. In addition to family issues this plan offers coverage for administrative hearings

Commercial truck drivers-The plan id designed to protect the CDL endorsement. It only takes two citations for what transportation board calls "Serious infractions" to lose the CDL endorsement. Careless driving and speeding (20+) are both serious infractions. Nor is it limited to infraction written while you are driving your rig, infractions committed in your personal vehicle also count against your CDL endorsement.

We also have two types of business plans. The first is our small business plan which cover only the business. The other two types of business plans are self employed and the home based business rider. I tend to prefer the self employed plan as it is more flexible allowing you to work from your home or a store front. You are also allowed to have up to 8 employees. In addition to your business coverage, you get all the benefits of the family plan. If there are any questions you'd like to ask about this business and how it can help people ask now.



Nov 29th 2007 08:31