Bradenton, FLA (September 25, 2020) – SUNZ Holdings, LLC (“SUNZ”) announced today that it’s affiliate, Avalon Subrogation Partners, LLC (“Avalon”) successfully concluded it’s subrogation recovery of $2.1M, SUNZ largest ever, from certain CA construction defendants, on behalf of SUNZ’ clients.
In April 2018, an insured employee was severely injured when he fell several stories at a California construction site. Avalon’s client, SUNZ, was the workers compensation carrier which provided benefits to the injured workers and his family.
California’s “Privette Doctrine” essentially precludes insurance subrogation for in-state construction-related injuries as long as there is workers compensation coverage available to the injured worker.
This legal precedent presents a prohibitive hurdle to insurance recovery unless egregious conduct, which is excluded, can be proven against other project parties that are deemed liable.
As part of Avalon’s unique “Day One” approach, it retained industry-leading SIU vendor WatchPoint, and during its investigation a “Smoking Gun” was uncovered against key project contractors, which became a leverage opportunity which Avalon would later exploit.
Avalon became an active intervening party to the personal injury action filed by the injured worker and Avalon then leveraged its investigative evidence which ultimately resulted in the recent $2.1M subrogation recovery.
“Significant subrogation recoveries such as this, are always a product of a multi-discipline effort, and this recovery is no exception”, Avalon’s President Tim Supple advised. He continued, “We would like to thank our affiliate partners, WatchPoint (SIU) and Next Level Administrators (Claim TPA) for their significant contributions. Individually, I would also like to recognize Heather Wersinger, who handled this case for Avalon, Jeff Berghorn, on behalf of SUNZ, for his strategic expertise, NLA’s Amy Medina, Associate General Counsel Donna Ross, David Meganheimer as well as Lisa Collinson, for her stewardship as SUNZ’ outside counsel.” Supple continued.
