Subrogation and How It Affects You

Subrogation is a term that's understood among legal and insurance firms but sometimes not by the policyholders they represent. Rather than leave it to the professionals, it is in your benefit to comprehend the steps of the process. The more knowledgeable you are, the better decisions you can make about your insurance company.

Any insurance policy you own is a promise that, if something bad happens to you, the insurer of the policy will make restitutions in one way or another in a timely fashion. If you get injured at work, your employer's workers compensation insurance pays out 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 usually a heavily involved affair – and delay sometimes increases the damage to the policyholder – insurance firms often decide to pay up front and figure out the blame afterward. They then need a method to recoup the costs if, when there is time to look at all the facts, they weren't in charge of the payout.

Let's Look at an Example

You are in a traffic-light accident. Another car ran into yours. Police are called, you exchange insurance details, and you go on your way. You have comprehensive insurance and file a repair claim. Later it's determined that the other driver was to blame and his insurance should have paid for the repair of your car. How does your insurance company get its money back?

How Does Subrogation Work?

This is where subrogation comes in. It is the way that an insurance company uses to claim reimbursement 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 self or property. But under subrogation law, your insurer is considered to have 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.

How Does This Affect Me?

For a start, if you have a deductible, it wasn't just your insurer who had to pay. In a $10,000 accident with a $1,000 deductible, you have a stake in the outcome as well – to the tune of $1,000. If your insurance company is lax about bringing subrogation cases to court, it might choose to get back its losses by increasing your premiums and call it a day. On the other hand, if it has a proficient legal team and goes after them aggressively, it is doing you a favor as well as itself. 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 accountable), you'll typically get $500 back, based on the laws in most states.

Additionally, if the total price 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 immigration law firm Sandy Ut, pursue subrogation and succeeds, it will recover your costs in addition to its own.

All insurance agencies are not created equal. When shopping around, it's worth comparing the records of competing companies to determine if they pursue valid subrogation claims; if they do so fast; if they keep their account holders informed as the case proceeds; and if they then process successfully won reimbursements right away so that you can get your funding back and move on with your life. If, instead, an insurance firm has a record of honoring claims that aren't its responsibility and then protecting its bottom line by raising your premiums, you should keep looking.