Advice Needed: Private Malpractice Insurance

[JanessaG, BSN]

Hello. I am looking for some advice from all of you experienced nurses out there! I have been hired into a new grad program at a great hospital. In school, during our Legal class, our teacher strongly urged us to acquire our own malpractice insurance. I asked the hospital I will be working for if the company they use offers an option for extra insurance. I was told that the hospital covers us very well and this includes mistakes. She said the only way I would not be covered is if it were "gross negligence" and that if this were the case, private insurance would not cover that either. I've also been told by other nurses that it has been their experience that nurses who carry their own insurance are more likely to be sued.

What are you thoughts about this? Should I get my own coverage?

I have received an offer in the mail through CNA/NSO for malpractice coverage and it's only $89..... but I don't want to set myself up to be sued, if this is generally the case.

If the general concensus is that you should carry your own, do you have any recommendations as to who one would go through? I just have no clue how to figure out which companies are reputable and which are not.

Thanks for any advice any of you may have :)

[sirI, MSN, APRN, NP]

Definitely buy Liability Insurance. NSO is a good company.

No, it does not target you if you have insurance.

Remember, even if your employer covers you, you may share limits of liability with other nurses and could be liable for costs beyond those limits.

Better safe than sorry. I've had insurance for years as have many here. It's peace of mind.

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

I totally agree with sirI. There was a thread about this a few months back with some hair-raising examples of why it's vital to have your own personal coverage. When things go sideways, the hospital is never going to defend a nurse, they're going to be too busy covering their own shortcomings. It might seem like a waste of money to pay for somethig you may never use, but think about what would happen to you if the unthinkable became real. I have several insurance policies that I expect never to collect on but it makes me sleep better at night to know that if I died tomorrow, for example, my family would have a paid off mortgage and car, the line of credit I renovated my kitchen with would be gone, my VISA with the trip I planned for May would be paid and there would be money for my son. Think of it as an investment in your future.

[Imafloat, BSN, RN]

I carry my own insurance. I don't know how having it would make you more likely to get sued. I don't advertise that I have insurance. I have read many threads on this board of nurses who were hung out to dry by their hospitals when a lawsuit is threatened. If a hospital has their back to the wall, 98% of employers are going to throw you under the bus. I pay $89 a year for my peace of mind.

Sorry to have such a grim view, but it is reality. Healthcare is a business, and sadly, the hospitals are all about the bottom dollar.

[mom2michael, MSN, RN, NP]

The hospital will cover their own hinny and not yours in the middle of a lawsuit. You'll be left with mounds of lawyer bills and endless possibilties for out of pocket expenses. Depending on the situtation you'll probably be fired so you'll be out the job as well. The hospital *may* provide you with an attorney who is out for the hospital's best interest not yours.

It's less than $100 per year and worth every stinking penny you'll ever pay if you ever need it.

And they'll name every person they can find in a lawsuit regardless of malpractice insurance or not.

And the hospital tells you they'll cover you because it makes them seem friendly and somehow less "corperate" and somehow they think you'll percieve them as caring. However, they are a business 1st and foremost and they'll do anything to protect themselves in the end....

[elkpark]

When something goes wrong in a hospital (pt. death or serious injury), it's very common (I've seen it with my own eyes many times over years as a hospital surveyor for my state and CMS) for hospitals to attempt to avoid liability by identifying a particular nurse and say that it's that nurse's fault that the bad outcome occurred. (In many of the cases I investigated, the nurse in question obviously did nothing particularly wrong other than have the bad luck to be assigned to that particular patient on that particular day ...) In that situation, the hospital then immediately fires the nurse and reports her/him to the BON, to demonstrate their good faith ("Oh, golly! We didn't realize we had inadvertantly hired a dangerous, incompetent nurse -- we're really sorry! But, hey, that doesn't make it our fault ...")

When this happens, the nurse in question is immediately no longer covered by the hospital's insurance (not that s/he was really covered in the first place ...), PLUS, there is no insurance company on the planet that will sell you coverage for an incident that has already occurred -- so, if s/he doesn't already have individual coverage, s/he is just screwed.

As others have noted, even if the hospital does "cover" you in a problem situation, the attorneys will be representing the hospital's interests, not yours.

Another thing that needs to be included in these discussions -- yes, it is certainly true that an individual nurse's chances of ever getting named in a lawsuit are slim-to-none. However, standard liability policies include coverage for legal representation if you have to go before the BON to defend your license, or if you are called as a witness in a lawsuit against someone else. Either of those two scenarios are much more likely to happen than you being sued, and, in either case, you would definitely want legal representation. The annual premium for your own coverage will cost you much less than the first hour with an attorney you have to pay out of your own pocket ...

My father is an MD, and, while I was in nursing school a hundred years ago, he advised me to never even think about practicing without my own liability coverage. Everything I've seen since then in the 20+ years I've been a practicing RN has just reinforced to me what good advice that was.

[JanessaG, BSN]

Wow! Thank you so much for all of your responses. It really wasn't until it was said that having insurance makes you more likely to be sued that I even started questioning getting it. These were all the things rolling around in my head that made me want to get insurance in the first place.

I truly appreciate the information, advice and affirmation of my own thoughts

I will be signing up for my own insurance to keep my butt covered! As a new nurse, there are so many things to think about and this one seemed so obvious... I just want to be sure I do the right thing for myself so that I can dive into caring for my patients Again, thank you for all of your responses they have been a great help!