Subrogation is a concept that's understood in insurance and legal circles but rarely by the people who hire them. Even if you've never heard the word before, it is in your benefit to comprehend an overview of the process. The more information you have about it, the better decisions you can make about your insurance policy.
An insurance policy you have is a promise that, if something bad happens to you, the business that insures the policy will make restitutions in one way or another in a timely manner. If you get hurt while you're on the clock, for instance, your employer's workers compensation agrees to pay for medical services. Employment lawyers handle the details; you just get fixed up.
But since ascertaining who is financially responsible for services or repairs is typically a tedious, lengthy affair – and delay often adds to the damage to the victim – insurance companies usually opt to pay up front and assign blame after the fact. They then need a mechanism to get back the costs if, when there is time to look at all the facts, they weren't in charge of the expense.
For Example
You go to the doctor's office with a sliced-open finger. You give the nurse your medical insurance card and he writes down your coverage details. You get taken care of and your insurer gets an invoice for the expenses. But the next day, when you arrive at work – where the accident happened – your boss hands you workers compensation forms to turn in. Your workers comp policy is in fact responsible for the hospital trip, not your medical insurance. The latter has a right to recover its money somehow.
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 companies have in-house property damage lawyers and personal injury attorneys, or a department dedicated to subrogation; others contract with a law firm. Ordinarily, only you can sue for damages done to your self or property. But under subrogation law, your insurer 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 Does This Matter to Me?
For one thing, 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 – namely, $1,000. If your insurance company is unconcerned with pursuing subrogation even when it is entitled, it might opt to recoup its costs by increasing your premiums and call it a day. On the other hand, if it knows which cases it is owed and pursues 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 one-half to blame), you'll typically get half your deductible back, based on the laws in most states.
Additionally, if the total price of an accident is over your maximum coverage amount, you may have had to pay the difference, which can be extremely costly. If your insurance company or its property damage lawyers, such as lawyer lake geneva wi, successfully press a subrogation case, it will recover your losses as well as its own.
All insurance agencies are not created equal. When shopping around, it's worth examining the records of competing companies to find out if they pursue winnable subrogation claims; if they do so quickly; if they keep their accountholders informed as the case goes on; and if they then process successfully won reimbursements immediately so that you can get your deductible back and move on with your life. If, on the other hand, an insurer has a record of honoring claims that aren't its responsibility and then protecting its income by raising your premiums, you should keep looking.