Subrogation is a concept that's understood among legal and insurance firms but rarely by the people they represent. Even if you've never heard the word before, it is in your benefit to understand an overview of the process. The more information you have about it, the more likely relevant proceedings will work out favorably.
Every insurance policy you own is an assurance that, if something bad occurs, the insurer of the policy will make restitutions in one way or another in a timely manner. If your house is burglarized, your property insurance steps in to remunerate you or enable the repairs, subject to state property damage laws.
But since figuring out who is financially responsible for services or repairs is usually a tedious, lengthy affair – and time spent waiting often compounds the damage to the policyholder – insurance companies often decide to pay up front and figure out the blame after the fact. They then need a mechanism to recover the costs if, once the situation is fully assessed, they weren't actually responsible for the expense.
For Example
Your living room catches fire and causes $10,000 in house damages. Happily, you have property insurance and it pays for the repairs. However, the assessor assigned to your case discovers that an electrician had installed some faulty wiring, and there is a reasonable possibility that a judge would find him to blame for the loss. The house has already been repaired in the name of expediency, but your insurance firm is out ten grand. What does the firm do next?
How Does Subrogation Work?
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 insurance firms 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 to your person or property. But under subrogation law, your insurer is considered to have some of your rights in exchange for having taken care of the damages. It can go after the money 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, 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 – namely, $1,000. If your insurer is lax about bringing subrogation cases to court, it might choose to get back its costs by ballooning your premiums. On the other hand, if it has a capable legal team 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 thousand-dollar deductible back. If it recovers half (for instance, in a case where you are found 50 percent at fault), you'll typically get $500 back, depending on your state laws.
Furthermore, 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 divorce lawyer 98501, pursue subrogation and succeeds, it will recover your expenses in addition to its own.
All insurers are not created equal. When shopping around, it's worth measuring the reputations of competing firms to evaluate if they pursue legitimate subrogation claims; if they do so quickly; if they keep their clients apprised as the case continues; and if they then process successfully won reimbursements immediately so that you can get your deductible back and move on with your life. If, instead, an insurance agency has a record of paying out claims that aren't its responsibility and then safeguarding its profitability by raising your premiums, you'll feel the sting later.