Subrogation is a term that's understood among legal and insurance professionals but rarely by the customers they represent. Rather than leave it to the professionals, it is to your advantage to understand an overview of how it works. The more knowledgeable you are, the better decisions you can make with regard to your insurance company.
Any insurance policy you have is an assurance that, if something bad occurs, the firm on the other end of the policy will make good in a timely manner. If you get hurt while working, for example, your company's workers compensation insurance pays out for medical services. Employment lawyers handle the details; you just get fixed up.
But since determining who is financially accountable for services or repairs is regularly a confusing affair a€" and delay sometimes increases the damage to the policyholder a€" insurance firms usually opt to pay up front and figure out the blame after the fact. They then need a mechanism to get back the costs if, when all the facts are laid out, they weren't responsible for the expense.
Can You Give an Example?
You are in a car accident. Another car crashed into yours. The police show up to assess the situation, you exchange insurance information, and you go on your way. You have comprehensive insurance that pays for the repairs right away. Later police tell the insurance companies that the other driver was entirely at fault and his insurance should have paid for the repair of your car. How does your company get its money back?
How Subrogation Works
This is where subrogation comes in. It is the method that an insurance company uses to claim reimbursement when it pays out a claim that turned out not to be its responsibility. Some insurance firms have in-house property damage lawyers and personal injury attorneys, or a department dedicated to subrogation; others contract with a law firm. Usually, only you can sue for damages to your person or property. But under subrogation law, your insurance company is given some of your rights for having taken care of the damages. It can go after the money that was originally due to you, because it has covered the amount already.
Why Should I Care?
For one thing, if your insurance policy stipulated a deductible, it wasn't just your insurance company that had to pay. In a $10,000 accident with a $1,000 deductible, you have a stake in the outcome as well a€" to be precise, $1,000. If your insurer is lax about bringing subrogation cases to court, it might choose to recover its costs by upping your premiums. On the other hand, if it has a competent legal team and goes after them efficiently, it is acting both in its own interests and in yours. If all ten grand is recovered, you will get your full $1,000 deductible back. If it recovers half (for instance, in a case where you are found 50 percent responsible), you'll typically get $500 back, depending on the laws in your state.
Moreover, if the total expense of an accident is more than your maximum coverage amount, you may have had to pay the difference. If your insurance company or its property damage lawyers, such as Divorce attorney provo ut, successfully press a subrogation case, it will recover your expenses as well as its own.
All insurers are not created equal. When comparing, it's worth measuring the records of competing firms to find out if they pursue valid subrogation claims; if they do so with some expediency; if they keep their accountholders informed as the case proceeds; and if they then process successfully won reimbursements right away so that you can get your deductible back and move on with your life. If, on the other hand, an insurance agency has a record of paying out claims that aren't its responsibility and then covering its bottom line by raising your premiums, you should keep looking.