Ownership of the property passes to the insurer by automatic transfer?

The insurers of a vessel indemnified the assured owners of a vessel for a total loss after a collision with another ship. When, after, the assured succeeded, in the Admiralty Court, in recovering a large sum by the way of damages from the owners of the other colliding ship, the insurers successfully sued the assured for that money on the basis that it belonged to them by way of subrogation. However, on the issue of who owned the wreck, Cockburn CJ was in no doubt that it had automatically passed to the insurers after payment of indemnity.