Tennessee Injury Law Center : Lawyers for Personal Injury and Wrongful Death : Serving Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville

I just settled my personal injury case and my lawyer tells me I have to repay my health insurance company for paying my medical bills.  I have paid health insurance premiums for 25 years and was never in the hospital one time before my wreck!  Why do they have the right to get repaid? 

Because the insurance policy you have almost certainly says that they have the right to be repaid.  That is part of the bargain you struck with them - even though you never read your policy and no agent or representative of your employer mentioned it to you.

Depending on the type of health insurance you have there are several arguments that can be made to secure a reduction in the amount that must be paid back to the insurer.  An experienced personal injury attorney will know this area of the law and will work with you to secure a reduction in possible.

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I just settled my personal injury case and my lawyer told me that I have to re-pay my health insurance company the amount they paid for my medical bills from the accident.  That doesn’t seem fair.  Is my lawyer right?

Your lawyer is probably right.  Most health insurance policies have what are known as subrogation  or reimbursement clauses.  These clauses mean that if you get hurt and collect medical bills paid by your insurance company from the person who hurt you your insurance company gets paid back. 

If your insurance through a government-sponsored program like Tenncare or Medicare you also have a responsibility to re-pay the government out of any settlement you receive.

Sometimes a lawyer can persuade an insurance company or the government to accept less money than the company actually paid for your bills.  Whether this can be done depends on the type of insurance policy you have, the language of the policy, and various other factors. 

Good lawyers tell their personal injury clients about the probability of having to re-pay the health insurer  when they are initially hired in the case.  There is no reason why a client should learn about the obligation to re-pay a health insurer after a settlement is reached.

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