Subrogation is a term that's understood in legal and insurance circles but rarely by the policyholders they represent. If this term has come up when dealing with your insurance agent or a legal proceeding, it would be to your advantage to understand the nuances of the process. The more information you have, the better decisions you can make with regard to your insurance company.
Every insurance policy you own is a commitment that, if something bad occurs, the insurer of the policy will make good in a timely manner. If you get hurt at work, for example, your company's workers compensation insurance agrees to pay for medical services. Employment lawyers handle the details; you just get fixed up.
But since figuring out who is financially responsible for services or repairs is often a time-consuming affair – and time spent waiting in some cases compounds the damage to the victim – insurance firms often opt to pay up front and assign blame later. They then need a mechanism to recover the costs if, once the situation is fully assessed, they weren't actually in charge of the payout.
Can You Give an Example?
You are in a car accident. Another car crashed into yours. Police are called, you exchange insurance information, and you go on your way. You have comprehensive insurance and file a repair claim. Later police tell the insurance companies that the other driver was entirely to blame and her insurance policy should have paid for the repair of your car. How does your company get its money back?
How Does Subrogation Work?
This is where subrogation comes in. It is the process that an insurance company uses to claim payment 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. Under ordinary circumstances, only you can sue for damages to your person or property. But under subrogation law, your insurance company is extended some of your rights in exchange for having taken care of the damages. It can go after the money originally due to you, because it has covered the amount already.
Why Does This Matter to Me?
For starters, if you have a deductible, your insurance company wasn't the only one that had to pay. In a $10,000 accident with a $1,000 deductible, you lost some money too – namely, $1,000. If your insurer is lax about bringing subrogation cases to court, it might choose to get back its losses by upping your premiums and call it a day. On the other hand, if it has a proficient legal team and pursues those cases enthusiastically, it is doing you a favor as well as itself. If all is recovered, you will get your full thousand-dollar deductible back. If it recovers half (for instance, in a case where you are found 50 percent accountable), you'll typically get half your deductible back, depending on your state laws.
Furthermore, if the total loss of an accident is more than your maximum coverage amount, you could be in for a stiff bill. If your insurance company or its property damage lawyers, such as Criminal Defense Attorney Hillsboro Or, pursue subrogation and wins, it will recover your losses as well as its own.
All insurers are not the same. When shopping around, it's worth looking up the reputations of competing agencies to find out whether they pursue valid subrogation claims; if they resolve those claims without dragging their feet; if they keep their clients updated as the case proceeds; and if they then process successfully won reimbursements quickly so that you can get your losses back and move on with your life. If, instead, an insurer has a reputation of honoring claims that aren't its responsibility and then safeguarding its profitability by raising your premiums, you'll feel the sting later.