Subrogation is a concept that's understood among legal and insurance professionals but sometimes not by the customers who employ them. Rather than leave it to the professionals, it would be in your self-interest to comprehend the steps of the process. The more you know, the better decisions you can make about your insurance policy.
Every insurance policy you own is a commitment that, if something bad happens to you, the insurer of the policy will make good in one way or another without unreasonable delay. If your real estate burns down, your property insurance steps in to repay you or facilitate the repairs, subject to state property damage laws.
But since figuring out who is financially responsible for services or repairs is often a heavily involved affair – and time spent waiting in some cases increases the damage to the victim – insurance firms in many cases decide to pay up front and assign blame afterward. They then need a path to recover the costs if, in the end, they weren't actually in charge of the expense.
For Example
You are in a highway accident. Another car ran into yours. The police show up to assess the situation, you exchange insurance details, and you go on your way. You have comprehensive insurance that pays for the repairs right away. Later police tell the insurance companies that the other driver was at fault and her insurance should have paid for the repair of your auto. How does your company get its money back?
How Does Subrogation Work?
This is where subrogation comes in. It is the process that an insurance company uses to claim payment 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 person or property. But under subrogation law, your insurer is considered to have 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 Should I Care?
For one thing, if your insurance policy stipulated a deductible, it wasn't just your insurer who had to pay. In a $10,000 accident with a $1,000 deductible, you lost some money too – to the tune of $1,000. If your insurance company is unconcerned with pursuing subrogation even when it is entitled, it might choose to get back its expenses by upping your premiums and call it a day. On the other hand, if it has a competent legal team and pursues them efficiently, it is acting both in its own interests and in yours. If all of the money is recovered, you will get your full 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 the laws in your state.
Furthermore, 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 accident lawyer pasadena, md, successfully press a subrogation case, it will recover your costs in addition to its own.
All insurers are not the same. When shopping around, it's worth weighing the records 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 customers updated as the case continues; and if they then process successfully won reimbursements quickly so that you can get your money back and move on with your life. If, on the other hand, an insurance company has a reputation of honoring claims that aren't its responsibility and then protecting its profit margin by raising your premiums, even attractive rates won't outweigh the eventual headache.