To get accident compensation claims accepted in the UK, you should contact your lawyer immediately after the accident. The kinds of accidents you might get involved in include road traffic accidents, hit and run accidents, accidents at work, accidents …

I think what you’re saying is a half-truth.

The true half: “Subrogation” is indeed intended to allow insurance companies to be reimbursed if the incident they’re covering is paid somewhere else, for example, if your collision insurance pays for car repairs and you subsequently are able to recover the money from the other driver. This prevents the insured person from making a profit by collecting twice (if this were allowed, there would be a huge incentive to create situations in which it occurs, which could bankrupt the whole system.) Most companies do indeed do this.

The false half: though we don’t know all the inner workings of the case, it seems reasonable to assume that Mrs. Shank’s settlement was intended to cover all her losses from the accident. Alongside out-of-pocket medical expenses, it was intended to compensate her for her permanent loss of earning ability, her drastically reduced quality of life, and her pain and suffering. Of course, in comparison to all these things, the amount she received was paltry–but at least it was something. Such settlements are quite common. Despite the public perception that people who sue make out like bandits, most, in reality, end up only receiving a fraction of the true financial value of their loss, if it can even be calculated.

So in this case, a megarich corporation swoops in, and uses the language of the fine print to “reimburse” itself at close to 100 cents on the dollar, which eats up Mrs. Shank’s entire settlement, reducing her to destitution. The letter of the law (which Wal-Mart’s highly paid attorneys probably wrote) is being fulfilled, but the spirit of it is being made a mockery of.

And this, of course, is part of a pattern of behavior of Wal-mart toward its employees in which the company never hesitates to take the last penny away from the poorest of the poor if that penny can be added to the corporation’s bottom line. So what’s� not to hate about them?