Subrogation is a term that's understood in legal and insurance circles but often not by the customers who hire them. Rather than leave it to the professionals, it would be to your advantage to know the steps of the process. The more you know about it, the better decisions you can make about your insurance policy.
Every insurance policy you hold is an assurance that, if something bad occurs, the firm on the other end of the policy will make restitutions in one way or another without unreasonable delay. If your home suffers fire damage, for instance, your property insurance agrees to compensate you or facilitate the repairs, subject to state property damage laws.
But since determining who is financially accountable for services or repairs is regularly a confusing affair – and time spent waiting in some cases increases the damage to the policyholder – insurance firms usually opt to pay up front and assign blame afterward. They then need a method to recover the costs if, in the end, they weren't in charge of the expense.
Can You Give an Example?
You are in an auto accident. Another car ran into yours. The police show up to assess the situation, you exchange insurance information, and you go on your way. You have comprehensive insurance and file a repair claim. Later police tell the insurance companies that the other driver was to blame and her insurance should have paid for the repair of your auto. How does your company get its funds back?
How Does Subrogation Work?
This is where subrogation comes in. It is the way that an insurance company uses to claim payment after it has paid for something that should have been paid by some other entity. 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 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 originally due to you, because it has covered the amount already.
How Does This Affect the Insured?
For a start, if you have 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 – namely, $1,000. If your insurer is lax about bringing subrogation cases to court, it might choose to recoup its expenses by upping your premiums. On the other hand, if it has a competent legal team and goes after them aggressively, it is acting both in its own interests and in yours. If all is recovered, you will get your full thousand-dollar deductible back. If it recovers half (for instance, in a case where you are found one-half responsible), you'll typically get half your deductible back, depending on your state laws.
Furthermore, if the total loss of an accident is over your maximum coverage amount, you could be in for a stiff bill. If your insurance company or its property damage lawyers, such as legal representation Tumwater, WA, pursue subrogation and succeeds, it will recover your expenses in addition to its own.
All insurance companies are not the same. When shopping around, it's worth examining the records of competing agencies to evaluate whether they pursue winnable subrogation claims; if they do so without dragging their feet; 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 money back and move on with your life. If, instead, an insurer has a reputation of paying out claims that aren't its responsibility and then protecting its income by raising your premiums, you'll feel the sting later.