Subrogation is an idea that's understood in insurance and legal circles but rarely by the policyholders who employ them. Rather than leave it to the professionals, it would be to your advantage to know the nuances of the process. The more knowledgeable you are about it, the better decisions you can make with regard to your insurance company.

An insurance policy you have is an assurance that, if something bad occurs, the insurer of the policy will make good without unreasonable delay. If your vehicle is in a fender-bender, insurance adjusters (and the judicial system, when necessary) determine who was to blame and that party's insurance covers the damages.

But since determining who is financially responsible for services or repairs is typically a confusing affair – and time spent waiting sometimes increases the damage to the victim – insurance firms in many cases decide to pay up front and assign blame after the fact. They then need a mechanism to recover the costs if, when all is said and done, they weren't actually responsible for the expense.

For Example

You are in an auto 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 and file a repair claim. Later police tell the insurance companies that the other driver was entirely to blame and his insurance should have paid for the repair of your vehicle. How does your insurance company get its funds 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. Ordinarily, only you can sue for damages done to your person or property. But under subrogation law, your insurance company is considered to have 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.

Why Should I Care?

For starters, if you have a deductible, your insurance company wasn't the only one 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 insurance company is lax about bringing subrogation cases to court, it might choose to get back its losses by upping your premiums and call it a day. On the other hand, if it knows which cases it is owed and goes after them efficiently, it is doing you a favor as well as itself. 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 50 percent responsible), you'll typically get half your deductible back, depending on your state laws.

In addition, 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 personal injury attorney Bonney Lake WA, pursue subrogation and succeeds, it will recover your costs in addition to its own.

All insurers are not created equal. When comparing, it's worth examining the records of competing firms to find out whether they pursue winnable subrogation claims; if they do so without delay; if they keep their clients posted as the case continues; and if they then process successfully won reimbursements quickly so that you can get your funding back and move on with your life. If, instead, an insurance company has a record of paying out claims that aren't its responsibility and then safeguarding its bottom line by raising your premiums, you'll feel the sting later.