Subrogation and How It Affects Policyholders

Subrogation is a term that's understood among legal and insurance professionals but often not by the people they represent. Even if it sounds complicated, it is in your self-interest to know an overview of the process. The more you know about it, the better decisions you can make about your insurance policy.

An insurance policy you own is a commitment that, if something bad occurs, the insurer of the policy will make good in one way or another in a timely manner. If your vehicle is hit, insurance adjusters (and the courts, when necessary) determine who was at fault and that person's insurance covers the damages.

But since figuring out who is financially responsible for services or repairs is sometimes a tedious, lengthy affair – and time spent waiting sometimes compounds the damage to the policyholder – insurance companies often decide to pay up front and assign blame afterward. They then need a means to recover the costs if, once the situation is fully assessed, they weren't responsible for the expense.

Let's Look at an Example

You are in a car accident. Another car collided with yours. Police are called, you exchange insurance information, and you go on your way. You have comprehensive insurance and file a repair claim. Later it's determined that the other driver was at fault and her insurance policy should have paid for the repair of your car. How does your insurance company get its money back?

How Does Subrogation Work?

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 to your self or property. But under subrogation law, your insurance company is extended some of your rights 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 one thing, 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 – to the tune of $1,000. If your insurer is unconcerned with pursuing subrogation even when it is entitled, it might choose to recoup its expenses by raising your premiums. On the other hand, if it knows which cases it is owed and pursues those cases aggressively, it is acting both in its own interests and in yours. If all $10,000 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 accountable), you'll typically get $500 back, based on the laws in most states.

Moreover, if the total price 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 lawyer kemmerer wy, successfully press a subrogation case, it will recover your losses in addition to its own.

All insurance companies are not created equal. When shopping around, it's worth looking at the reputations of competing firms to find out if they pursue legitimate subrogation claims; if they resolve those claims without dragging their feet; if they keep their policyholders apprised as the case continues; and if they then process successfully won reimbursements right away so that you can get your funding back and move on with your life. If, instead, an insurer has a record of paying out 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.