Most subrogation reps still learn the job on live files. A senior rep looks over their shoulder for a few weeks, and then they're on their own, accepting demands they should have countered and missing reductions they should have taken. In subrogation, a training mistake is a lost recovery or an overpayment. In arbitration, it can be a lost decision.
This guide lays out a training program that moves that learning curve off production files, using the way Claims School is built as the working example.
1. Sequence the skills, and enforce the sequence
A rep who can't yet assign comparative negligence has no business negotiating a demand. Claims School's subrogation track runs in four levels, and each one unlocks only after the one before it is completed:
- Subrogation Foundations. Inbound vs. outbound, reading a demand package, deductible reconciliation, liability basics, and the accept, negotiate, or deny decision. Ends with an inbound-demand simulation.
- Comparative Negligence and Loss Types. Building a liability percentage from the specific duties breached, one common fact pattern at a time. Ends with a claims-system simulation and a graded file note.
- Demand-Exchange Handling. The actionable responses to a demand and how to support each one with evidence. Ends with a negotiation simulation: accept, counter, deny, or request for information.
- Outbound Subrogation Demand. What a repairable or total-loss settlement must prove, salvage and deductible recovery, and assembling the demand packet. Ends with two demand-center simulations.
Progression follows fixed program rules. The program checks prerequisites, and the AI can't unlock a level, so nobody skips ahead because a deadline is looming.
2. Train arbitration as its own track
Arbitration is a different skill from negotiation. The rep has to build a liability argument, pick the evidence that proves it, and handle damages and coverage questions in a filing. Claims School has a separate four-level arbitration track, modeled on a real inter-company arbitration filing workflow:
- Arbitration Foundations. A lesson and a knowledge check.
- Claim review. Applicant and respondent files. The rep selects the relevant documents and writes a graded file note.
- Case filing. A seven-screen filing simulation that carries the Level 2 liability position forward and adds a coverage or jurisdictional-exclusion response, a policy-limit assertion with declarations-page evidence, and a damage-dispute worksheet.
- Damage disputes and the revisit. Working as the recovering company: a written response to each itemized damage dispute, evidence selection including proof of payment, and a revised amount sought.
An administrator assigns each rep to the subrogation track, the arbitration track, or both. A rep on both sees the two programs side by side on one dashboard.
3. Practice on files that look real but aren't
Reps learn a workflow by doing it, so the practice environment should look like the systems they'll use: a claims-system worklist with loss details, policy, financials, contacts, notes, and documents; a demand-exchange negotiation screen; an outbound demand center; an arbitration case filing.
Every scenario in Claims School is synthetic, and every document is marked on the page as fictional training data. The program never sends real communications and never makes a production claim decision. Trainees sign in through their own isolated identity tenant, behind an invitation allowlist.
4. Grade consistently, and keep the model out of progression
If two reviewers would grade the same answer differently, the score tells a rep very little. Claims School grades every attempt against a versioned rubric, with the grading model set to give the same answer the same score every time, as consistently as AI grading allows. When the grader isn't confident, the attempt goes to human review instead of passing automatically.
- Knowledge checks: 80% to pass, three attempts. These are assessments.
- Simulations: 75% to pass, unlimited attempts. These are practice, so a rep keeps working a scenario until they get it right.
The AI tutors and grades, but it never decides whether a level is complete. The program's own rules do.
5. Turn every miss into a lesson
A score on its own doesn't teach anything. In Claims School, a failed knowledge check comes back with an explanation of what was missed and why, cited to a reference corpus of state traffic statutes and industry references (593 documents indexed for retrieval). The rep has to acknowledge that explanation before the retry unlocks, so they can't just guess again. Simulations work differently: rubric feedback comes back inline, and the rep can keep retrying until they pass.
6. Give reps help that doesn't hand them answers
New reps have questions at all hours, and a senior rep can't always be there. Claims School's training assistant sits beside both programs. It explains concepts, helps reps find their way around, and talks through feedback once it's published. It draws only on the approved lesson text and reference corpus. During graded work, the server switches it into assessment mode: it never receives answer keys or rubric criteria, and it's instructed to explain the instructions rather than write a submission or choose an answer.
7. Teach your own carrier's rules, not just the general ones
A generic course can teach subrogation, but it can't teach how your carrier does it. During onboarding, Claims School authors your own procedures into your edition of the curriculum:
- Authority limits: how much a rep can accept, negotiate, or pay without escalating.
- Response and follow-up timeframes on a file.
- Which arbitration forums your carrier participates in.
- How tow, storage, and related incidental charges are handled.
- When a file should be escalated internally, and to whom.
From training to live files
See the full subrogation training curriculum, how simulations are graded, and the safety and isolation controls on the Claims School page.
Once reps are working live files, Claims Agent Suite applies the same standard there: reviewing inbound subrogation demands and building arbitration contentions.