If you’ve just joined the medical field as an employee of a physician group, you may need to know more about physicians malpractice insurance, rather than wait and find out the hard way as many physicians have. Your insurance is likely to have been paid for by the facility, but it is important to have information regarding the negotiating policy options, choosing a carrier, and allocation of premium costs.
Types of physicians malpractice insurance policies:
1. Claims-Made Policies
This policy provides coverage for any which was reported while you’re insured with the specific carrier. In other words, the claim filing must happen during the period the physicians malpractice insurance policy is in effect. You’re not covered for suits filed later unless you pay for “tail coverage,” a term used to refer to extended reporting endorsement. Though tail coverage is typically expensive (often 2 times more than the amount of paid as annual premium), it is important to be insured for claims that might arise later.
In some cases, the liability coverage from a policy that has already been dropped may be included in a new insurance policy. This is an alternative to the tail coverage and is known as “nose coverage”. Generally, the annual premium of a claims-made malpractice insurance policy may be rather inexpensive during the first few years. It then increases every year for the next 5 to 8 years until it reaches a mature rate.
2. Occurrence Policies
This policy provides coverage for any incident that occurred during the time the physicians malpractice insurance policy was in effect, irrespective of the time the claim is filed. If, for instance, you’re covered by an occurrence policy for the year 2010 and a claim is filed in 2012 for an incident that happened in 2007, the policy will cover you for that particular claim, even if it is no longer in effect.
Occurrence policies are usually more expensive than claims-made policies for the first few years of coverage since for the latter, the potential for claims grows slowly while policy years accumulate.
Premiums
When determining the amount of annual premium each individual in a physician group is to pay, insurance carriers usually come up with estimates of how much money may be needed for claims, and then divide the total among everyone. Other things like specialty, personal claims history and geographic location (state or territory) will also affect your premium.
Don’t worry about where you can get such important information regarding physicians malpractice insurance. PriMed Consulting can provide you with detailed information to help you choose the right malpractice coverage type and also link you to several malpractice carriers.
