Subrogation is an idea that's well-known in insurance and legal circles but sometimes not by the people who employ them. Even if you've never heard the word before, it is in your self-interest to understand the steps of the process. The more information you have about it, the more likely it is that relevant proceedings will work out favorably.
Any insurance policy you have is a promise that, if something bad occurs, the firm on the other end of the policy will make good in one way or another without unreasonable delay. If you get an injury while you're on the clock, for example, your company'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 accountable for services or repairs is sometimes a tedious, lengthy affair – and delay sometimes adds to the damage to the victim – insurance firms in many cases decide to pay up front and assign blame after the fact. They then need a method to get back the costs if, ultimately, they weren't in charge of the payout.
Let's Look at an Example
Your stove catches fire and causes $10,000 in house damages. Fortunately, you have property insurance and it takes care of the repair expenses. However, the assessor assigned to your case finds out that an electrician had installed some faulty wiring, and there is a decent chance that a judge would find him accountable for the damages. The home has already been fixed up in the name of expediency, but your insurance agency is out ten grand. What does the agency do next?
How Subrogation Works
This is where subrogation comes in. It is the process 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 person or property. But under subrogation law, your insurance company is given some of your rights for making good on the damages. It can go after the money originally due to you, because it has covered the amount already.
Why Should I Care?
For a start, if your insurance policy stipulated a deductible, it wasn't just your insurance company who 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 timid on any subrogation case it might not win, it might choose to recoup its costs by ballooning your premiums. On the other hand, if it has a proficient legal team and pursues them aggressively, it is doing you a favor as well as itself. If all ten grand 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 half your deductible back, based on the laws in most states.
Furthermore, if the total loss of an accident is over your maximum coverage amount, you may have had to pay the difference. If your insurance company or its property damage lawyers, such as social security disability lawyers paddock lake wi, successfully press a subrogation case, it will recover your expenses as well as its own.
All insurance companies are not the same. When comparing, it's worth looking up the reputations of competing companies to find out whether they pursue winnable subrogation claims; if they resolve those claims without dragging their feet; if they keep their policyholders updated 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 insurer has a record of honoring claims that aren't its responsibility and then protecting its profit margin by raising your premiums, you'll feel the sting later.
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