Subrogation and How It Affects Your Insurance Policy

Subrogation is a term that's understood among legal and insurance firms but sometimes not by the customers they represent. Even if it sounds complicated, it would be to your advantage to comprehend the nuances of the process. The more information you have about it, the more likely an insurance lawsuit will work out favorably.

Any insurance policy you have is an assurance that, if something bad happens to you, the insurer of the policy will make good in one way or another in a timely manner. If your property suffers fire damage, for instance, your property insurance steps in to compensate you or pay for the repairs, subject to state property damage laws.

But since figuring out who is financially accountable for services or repairs is often a confusing affair – and delay often adds to the damage to the policyholder – insurance firms often decide to pay up front and figure out the blame after the fact. They then need a mechanism to recover the costs if, when all is said and done, they weren't actually responsible for the payout.

Can You Give an Example?

You arrive at the emergency room with a sliced-open finger. You hand the receptionist your health insurance card and she records your policy details. You get stitched up and your insurer is billed for the medical care. But on the following morning, when you get to work – where the accident occurred – you are given workers compensation paperwork to file. Your company's workers comp policy is actually responsible for the payout, not your health insurance. The latter has a right to recover its money in some way.

How Subrogation Works

This is where subrogation comes in. It is the method that an insurance company uses to claim payment when it pays out a claim that turned out not to be its responsibility. Some companies have in-house property damage lawyers and personal injury attorneys, or a department dedicated to subrogation; others contract with a law firm. Normally, only you can sue for damages done to your person or property. But under subrogation law, your insurer is given some of your rights for making good on the damages. It can go after the money that was originally due to you, because it has covered the amount already.

Why Do I Need to Know This?

For one thing, if your insurance policy stipulated a deductible, your insurer wasn't the only one that had to pay. In a $10,000 accident with a $1,000 deductible, you have a stake in the outcome as well – to be precise, $1,000. If your insurer is unconcerned with pursuing subrogation even when it is entitled, it might choose to recover its costs by boosting your premiums. On the other hand, if it knows which cases it is owed and goes after them efficiently, 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 one-half accountable), you'll typically get half your deductible back, based on the laws in most states.

In addition, 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 personal injury claims Marietta, GA, pursue subrogation and succeeds, it will recover your losses as well as its own.

All insurance companies are not the same. When shopping around, it's worth looking at the reputations of competing companies to evaluate whether they pursue valid subrogation claims; if they do so with some expediency; if they keep their clients informed as the case proceeds; and if they then process successfully won reimbursements right away so that you can get your losses back and move on with your life. If, instead, an insurer has a record of paying out claims that aren't its responsibility and then covering its income by raising your premiums, you should keep looking.