How To Choose Malpractice Insurance

Although malpractice insurance is most often commonly associated with the medical profession, there are a wide range of occupations that can protect themselves by choosing malpractice insurance coverage. Malpractice insurance, also called Professional Liability Insurance and Errors and Omissions Insurance, is designed to provide professionals with liability coverage should they be facing a lawsuit claiming damages owed due to their professional conduct and actions taken in the course of their profession.  As consumers become more litigious, a great many more professions beyond doctors and nurses are considering malpractice coverage. Building contractors, architects, therapists and attorneys are among the range of professionals who can benefit from malpractice insurance coverage.

When a professional with malpractice insurance is sued for negligence, injury or damage, any settlement of money is taken care of by the malpractice insurance company, along with the costs incurred during litigation.

First check to see if there are companies that specialize in malpractice insurance for your particular industry or profession. If you belong to a professional association, ask the association director or other members if they feel a need for malpractice coverage.  Most professional organizations dealing with a class of professionals such as nurses, doctors, dentists and attorneys, are able to provide guidance about the best companies offering malpractice insurance policies and guidelines about how to determine who needs coverage and how much.

If you work for another company rather than as a self-employed contractor or business owner yourself, ask your company what sort of liability insurance the business carries and whether or not you as an employee are covered for any liability in the course of your job. Be clear about whether or not you are covered personally for malpractice by the business' policy. Once you are sued, it is too late to discover you should have had your own personal malpractice policy.

If someone in your industry is sued for malpractice, look at their circumstances as a learning case study for yourself.  You can benefit greatly by the mistakes of others by seeing how well or how poorly their own malpractice coverage worked in their favor and let it guide your own decisions when purchasing a malpractice insurance policy.

List all of your current financial assets, including income, bank accounts, stocks and bonds, real property and any other financial assets which could be sought by a plaintiff should you be sued for malpractice.  Have these figures readily at hand when consulting a malpractice insurance agent who can then best guide you as to the amount of coverage which is best for this juncture of your professional career.