Health

Running a practice can be risky. Practice owners can carry a number of risks and liabilities which can mean unnecessary legal expenses, fines and loss of profit for your practice. Insurance helps in offsetting the cost of an incident by letting you make a claim for a first party loss ( related to your own business) or third party (another business or individual you are liable for) pay out and related expenses.

A claim is made when you make a formal request to your insurance company to receive money to help you pay for expenses caused by a policy event like a cyber incident, personal injury that is covered by your insurance. The insurance company validates the claim and, once approved, issues payment to the insured or an approved interested party on behalf of the insured. A claim is always made for a dollar amount and is a request for money.

• Vicarious Medical Indemnity insurance
• Management Liability Insurance
• Cyber Liability Insurance
• Business Package including Public Liability.
• Workers Compensation

Other insurances (Trade Mark Insurance, Legal Expense Insurance,etc)
Vicarious medical indemnity policy is a professional negligence policy. It covers you should a medical practitioner face a claim or be found guilty of negligence in discharging advice or their duty within the medical practice.

Management Liability Insurance is a like Directors & Officers insurance policy. It covers the practice and its board for any wrong doing in context of a breach of a legislation (law under which the practice operates).

Cyber Liability: Health data/information of patients held by a medical practice is classified as sensitive information and covered by Privacy Act. Cyber insurance offsets any cyber incident related business interruption and loss of profit plus the notification costs and legal fees which may arise out of a cyber or hacking incident.

Business Package insurance covers your practice for contents damage and replacement costs, electronic equipment damage &replacement costs, loss of money on premises and property damage from flood, fire, burglary and related business interruption if you are not able to access your practice.

Each policy can have sub clauses and exclusions – which apply.

You must have an idea of value of your key assets, your legal obligations, your projected revenue, whether you shall hire full time or contractors as staff, how will you store your patient records, risk management and governance practices you intend to put in place, lease arrangements with the landlord, having a business plan etc in place. You must then decide on limits and excess for each insurance policy you wish to apply for.

You must assess premiums costs, coverage, limits and exclusions of the policy. Once you bind your policy, you must ensure you are conforming to governance and risk management. Insurance never pays for negligence – therefore make sure you train your staff and keep up with your compliance.

Insurers have very specific questions for each class of insurance listed in their proposal form. A insurance broker will share the proposal forms with you – you can clarify those questions with the broker when providing the information. Sometimes insurance companies may ask for more information specific to your circumstances etc. It is best to get the process started as soon as possible to understand the requirements – like seeking insurance proposals earlier on in the process and assessing what information you need to obtain.