Malpractice Insurance and Types of Policies

Many medical students who join a physician or a hospital or healthcare professionals do not bother to know about malpractice insurance. One of the most common reasons for this is that they do not know about the concept of malpractice insurance and what is the benefits and why it is necessary? Even if you are a nurse or if you inject anesthesia, then it is important that you have malpractice insurance. You don’t have the insurance and suppose a suit is filed against you for negligence that has resulted in the further deterioration of the patient and their health or has caused the death, and then what will you do in such a scenario where the patient is claiming compensation. 

Malpractice Insurance

Therefore, it is very important for such fresher medical students or professionals also to have malpractice insurance coverage. Malpractice insurance protects medical professionals and health care professionals against lawsuits filed by patients for medical negligence. There are two types of malpractice insurance coverage – claims –made policy and occurrence policy. 

Claims-made Policy

In claims made policy one gets coverage only for the cases that occurred and it was also reported while the healthcare professional is insured with that particular carrier. So, the filing of the claim and the incident should happen when the policy is in effect. 

If you leave a claim made policy then you are not covered for any suits that are filed later unless and until you pay for ‘tail coverage’ also, known as an extended endorsement. Tail coverage might be expensive than the premiums that you pay, but it’s worth it. It is important mainly for the claims that can arise later. Even in your employment contract, you will get to know about tail coverage liability. There is also an alternative for tail coverage which is also known as ‘nose coverage’. 

Occurrence Policy – 

The occurrence policy provides coverage for lifetime incidents that has occurred when the policy was in effect. And it doesn’t matter when the claim was filed. For instance, you have an occurrence policy in effect for the year 2006 and later in the year 2011, the patient files a complaint about the incident medical negligence that happened in 2006, then still your policy has got you covered for the claim and doesn’t matter if you don’t have insurance with that carrier anymore. It still works. If you compare claims-made policies with occurrence policies, you will know that claims-made policies are cheaper.