Subrogation is a concept that's understood among insurance and legal firms but often not by the people who hire them. If this term has come up when dealing with your insurance agent or a legal proceeding, it is in your self-interest to understand the nuances of how it works. The more you know, the better decisions you can make with regard to your insurance company.
Every 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 without unreasonable delay. If a blizzard damages your house, your property insurance agrees to pay you or enable the repairs, subject to state property damage laws.
But since determining who is financially accountable for services or repairs is regularly a tedious, lengthy affair – and time spent waiting sometimes adds to the damage to the victim – insurance companies in many cases opt to pay up front and assign blame after the fact. They then need a method to recover the costs if, once the situation is fully assessed, they weren't actually in charge of the expense.
Let's Look at an Example
You head to the Instacare with a gouged finger. You hand the receptionist your health insurance card and he records your policy information. You get stitched up and your insurance company gets an invoice for the tab. But on the following day, when you get to your place of employment – where the accident occurred – you are given workers compensation forms to turn in. Your workers comp policy is actually responsible for the costs, not your health insurance company. It has a vested interest in getting that money back somehow.
How Does Subrogation Work?
This is where subrogation comes in. It is the method that an insurance company uses to claim reimbursement after it has paid for something that should have been paid by some other entity. 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 self or property. But under subrogation law, your insurance company is extended 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 starters, 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 lost some money too – to be precise, $1,000. If your insurer is unconcerned with pursuing subrogation even when it is entitled, it might opt to get back its losses by ballooning your premiums and call it a day. On the other hand, if it has a knowledgeable legal team and pursues those cases aggressively, it is doing you a favor as well as itself. If all is recovered, you will get your full deductible back. If it recovers half (for instance, in a case where you are found 50 percent responsible), you'll typically get $500 back, based on the laws in most states.
Moreover, if the total expense 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 auto accident lawyer Marietta GA, pursue subrogation and succeeds, it will recover your expenses as well as its own.
All insurance companies are not the same. When comparing, it's worth contrasting the reputations of competing firms to evaluate if they pursue legitimate subrogation claims; if they resolve those claims without delay; if they keep their policyholders advised as the case continues; and if they then process successfully won reimbursements quickly so that you can get your losses back and move on with your life. If, on the other hand, an insurance firm has a reputation of paying out claims that aren't its responsibility and then covering its income by raising your premiums, you'll feel the sting later.