Subrogation is an idea that's well-known in insurance and legal circles but often not by the policyholders they represent. If this term has come up when dealing with your insurance agent or a legal proceeding, it is in your benefit to comprehend the steps of the process. The more information you have, the better decisions you can make with regard to your insurance company.

Any insurance policy you hold 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 vehicle is in a fender-bender, insurance adjusters (and the courts, when necessary) determine who was at fault and that party's insurance covers the damages.

But since figuring out who is financially accountable for services or repairs is sometimes a heavily involved affair – and time spent waiting in some cases compounds the damage to the policyholder – insurance firms usually decide to pay up front and assign blame later. They then need a path to recoup the costs if, ultimately, they weren't actually responsible for the payout.

Can You Give an Example?

You rush into the emergency room with a gouged finger. You give the receptionist your health insurance card and he records your plan details. You get taken care of and your insurer gets an invoice for the expenses. But on the following day, when you get to work – where the accident happened – you are given workers compensation forms to fill out. Your employer's workers comp policy is actually responsible for the costs, not your health insurance. The latter has a right to recover its costs somehow.

How Subrogation Works

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. Normally, only you can sue for damages done to your self or property. But under subrogation law, your insurer is given some of your rights in exchange 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 one thing, if you have 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 be precise, $1,000. If your insurer is timid on any subrogation case it might not win, it might opt to get back its expenses by boosting your premiums and call it a day. On the other hand, if it knows which cases it is owed and pursues them enthusiastically, 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 one-half to blame), you'll typically get half your deductible back, depending on the laws in your state.

Furthermore, if the total expense of an accident is more than your maximum coverage amount, you may have had to pay the difference. If your insurance company or its property damage lawyers, such as criminal defense lawyer near me Hillsboro OR, pursue subrogation and wins, it will recover your expenses as well as its own.

All insurers are not the same. When shopping around, it's worth researching the records of competing agencies to evaluate whether they pursue legitimate subrogation claims; if they resolve those claims in a reasonable amount of time; if they keep their customers advised as the case goes on; 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 reputation of honoring claims that aren't its responsibility and then safeguarding its profitability by raising your premiums, even attractive rates won't outweigh the eventual headache.