Malpractice Insurance: How to Lower Your Premiums
Now’s the time to get too-high liability costs under control. Here’s our guide.
By Bob Redling Looking for ways to save money on medical malpractice insurance premiums? You may be in luck. The topsy-turvy market for malpractice insurance seems to be taking a turn for the better. Now may be the best time in years to grab some insurance savings.
How long it will last is anybody’s guess. But a physician-friendly trend has emerged recently.
The newsletter Medical Liability Monitor reports that in 2007, 84 percent of malpractice insurers either reduced premiums or froze them at the 2006 rate, and that followed two consecutive years in which 70 percent of insurers cut premiums from the previous year’s level or held them steady.
Better still, a return to profitability led many malpractice insurance companies to send dividend checks or other rebates back to policy holders last year. That seems likely to happen again this year.
So, happy days are here again, right? Not so fast. The malpractice market is notoriously turbulent. But in good times or bad, there are steps you can take to reduce your own burden. Take-or-leave it medical liability insurance is rare. Most physicians do have choices; shopping for malpractice coverage is like shopping for anything else: Let the buyer beware. Continued...
