Types of Coverage Available
Medical Malpractice Insurance - When a patient is presumed to be harmed by a physician, this covers defense costs.
Commercial Business Owner Coverage - Covers property and dwellings along with staff.
Business Owners Policy - Basic insurance for small practices covers property & liability .
Workers Compensation Insurance - Provides compensation to employees from work-related injuries.
Cyber Liability Insurance - Protects liability arising from negligent digital file management.
Errors & Omissions Insurance - Protects liability arising from omitting principle information.
Directors & Officers Insurance - Provides defense costs to Directors & Officers from liability, civil & criminal*.
Product Liability Insurance - Protects liability arising from samples provided to patients.
The Limits of Medical Malpractice Insurance in the State of California
Professional Liability $1 million each claim; $3 million annual aggregate
~ This means that every time you are alleged of malpractice, the Insurer will cover you up to $1 million each occurence, and a maximum of $3 million per year. Which means you can have 3, $1 million worth of claims, but not more than that. Some special conditions do apply to all policies in which our Dedicated Specialists will both present and decipher.
Errors and Omissions Liability
~ If you provide services not typically covered by a traditional medical malpractice policy, errors and omissions coverage mitigates your exposures. Errors and omissions coverage applies if your practice includes any of the following: Managed care-related activities, Billing operations, Surgery center, Medical director services, Not for profit, Independent physician associations, Med spas & More.
Damage to Property of Others $10,000 per incident; $10,000 annual aggregate
~ This means that when a patient leaves their $10,000 platinum & diamond plated phone at your office, and the office assistant accidentally drops the phone and then steps on it, rendering it useless, this will protect you from coming out of pocket. Usually with no deductible. The same condition applies, you can have 10 “accidents” not relating to each other, at settlements of $1000 each, but no more than that.
Directors and officers (D&O) Coverage
~ Protects directors and officers of a corporation or managing partners in a partnership, from liabilities related to the operation and management of a business. It provides assurance in the event they are sued in conjunction with the performance of their duties as they relate to the healthcare organization—allowing them to make important business decisions without fear of personal financial loss.
Information Privacy $25,000 annual aggregate
~ Customer patient information is important and with security at an all time high there is less risk for leaks of private information.
The “tail” (extended reporting endorsement) provisions are among the most important variables between policies to consider.
Because a claims-made policy will only cover you if the event happened while the policy was in force (after your “retro-active” date) AND was reported to the carrier while the policy was still in force — you cannot just leave your current carrier and start over with anew insurer!
You need to either purchase the extended reporting endorsement (“tail”) from your current carrier OR purchase prior acts (“nose”) coverage from the new insurance carrier. Purchasing tail coverage from your present carrier effectively converts your claims-made policy into an occurrence policy because it allows you to report claims in the future to that carrier even though the policy period has ended. If you purchase tail coverage from your current insurer and start over with a new insurance company you will have to new retro-active date.
Prior acts (or “nose”) coverage allows you to transfer your existing retro-active date to your new insurance carrier — eliminating the need to purchase tail coverage from your last carrier. It is usually less expensive to obtain prior acts coverage from the new company than to buy tail coverage from the old carrier and then purchase a first year claims-made policy from the new company.
We cannot over-emphasize the importance of your retro-active date. Most physicians we work with are not sure what we mean by retro-active date when we are collecting their information. Your retro-active date is the first day you became insured by a claims-made policy. That date will follow you for the rest of your medical career in most cases.
