Doctors and medical practitioners have to go through life and death situations every day and due to unexplained or dangerous circumstances, the life of the patient can be at stake or even cause death. While these are not intentional and happen accidentally, or due to negligence or errors doctors have to make sure that they are protected against any such unlikely events which happen in their professional life.
Professional Indemnity Policy
This policy is meant for professionals like doctors and medical practitioners to cover liability caused as a result of errors or mistakes committed by them while conducting their professional service. The policy covers the amount which the insured or the professionals are liable to pay to the damages experienced by the third party as a result of mistakes or errors made while rendering their service. The policy also has a provision to cover many members of the same profession in one group and enjoy a group discount in premium depending on the number of members covered.
Who can take the policy?
The policy is meant for professionals like:
- Doctors and medical practitioners (covering registered medical practitioners like physicians, cardiologists, surgeons, pathologists etc.
- Engineers, architects and interior designers
- Chartered accountants, financial accountants, management consultants
- Lawyers, advocates, solicitors and counsels
- Medical establishments that cover legal liability as a result of any error or mistake made by the medical professionals working in the medical establishments like hospitals, nursing homes etc.
The premium which the professional indemnity policy has to pay depends on the risk group of doctors, limits of indemnity selected and the ratio of limits. The policy only covers civil liability claims and criminal claims or any act committed in violation of law or rule is not covered.
Exclusions in the policy
The policy does not cover the following:
- Criminal acts
- Weight reduction
- Blood banks
- Radioactivity
- HIV aids
- Non-compliance with statutory provisions
- Plastic surgery
- Punitive and exemplary damages
- Acts committed under influence of intoxicants or narcotics
How to select the sum insured?
In the professional indemnity policy, the sum insured is mentioned as the limit of indemnity. This limit is fixed per accident and per policy tenure called Any One Accident (AOA) limit and Any One Year (AOY) limit. Hence the ratio of AOA to AOY limit can be chosen as 1:1,1:2,1:3 and 1:4.
The AOA limit is the maximum amount payable for each accident and should be fixed according to the nature of activity of the insured and the maximum number of people who could be affected and the maximum damage to property that could happen in the worst case accident.
In any case, it is always better to protect yourself against any error which might occur accidentally or from your own hands. As a doctor, patients will always rely on experts to do the job rightly hence itβs a wise decision to adopt professional indemnity policy.
