Resources & Insights

Case Study: Assigning Liability Where it Belongs

December 28, 2017

THE CHALLENGE:  Liability can be funny, though hardly ever in a ha-ha sort of way. Where things often get messy is in determining who pays when more than one party is, to one degree or another, involved in a claim. That’s what we were dealing with when our client, a subcontractor, hired another subcontractor to help on a highway expansion project. The sub’s subcontractor drove one of their trucks through some fresh-poured and still very wet concrete. We’re not talking about a few feet. We’re talking about a full one-third of a mile. Naturally, everyone called their insurance company.

OUR SOLUTION: The sad fact is that, in most cases like this, our client’s insurer would have been stuck with the bill. That would have eventually cost our client, too, in undoubtedly higher premiums down the road. Good thing we had our client’s back. We had created a  subrogation contract for its protection – exactly what was needed to ensure that our client and its carrier weren’t going to be left alone to twist in the wind.

THE OUTCOME: If you’ve ever been involved in an insurance claim, you know that the insurance company likes to get plenty of details about how any damage or injuries might have occurred. What it’s doing is determining who exactly is to blame for things. If it can find a third party who may be responsible, that relieves the insurer of some of its financial responsibility. This is referred to as “subrogation.” Following our advice, our client had a clearly written subrogation contract in place with the sub it had hired. And that simple risk-transfer step, without much muss or fuss, allowed the insurance company to recoup about 80 percent of the money it had paid to get the road project back on track

Want to learn more? Contact CCIG VP Scott Carlson at ScottC@thinkccig.com or 720-212-2040.

 

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