Great news for victims of New York Motorycle, Slip and Fall and Other Qualifying Accidents

Legal Alert from your Long Island Personal Injury Attorney, Jeena R. Belil

Effective November 12 2009, health insurers may no longer seek reimbursement or assert subrogation rights against personal injury or wrongful death suits brought by their policyholders.

The new General Obligations Law §5-335 now bars any benefit provider, such as an HMO or private health insurer, from seeking any reimbursement or subrogation against any settling party to a personal injury or wrongful death action with respect to benefits it may have paid or is obligated to pay. The only exceptions are for claims for which there is a statutory right of reimbursement (e.g., Medicaid, Medicare, workers' compensation) and subrogation claims to recover excess no-fault benefits.

This law takes effect immediately and applies both to future actions and all pending cases that have not settled or gone to trial as of November 12, 2009.

I have questioned the liens asserted by Major Medical insurers against my clients and insisted on reviewing the policy language.  In many instances, the language did not allow for subrogation rights against the insured. Now this law has been passed, my time can be better spent on working on the more substantive issues of your case.

If you have a question on this or any other personal injury issues, feel free to contact me.