Do I need Insurance?

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I'm a new RN, and I'll be starting work next Monday at a Family Practice (1st job). Do you think I would need ? If so, what is a good company to get it from?

I also just graduated as LPN in South Carolina and my instructor told us that everyone needs malpractice insurance, but I asked an experienced nurse and she said I would be covered by the company that I work for and that additional insurance will make me a target for lawsuits.

I'm always amazed that there are actual nurses out there who still perpetuate such outdated and uninformed views.

My father was a physician who advised me back when I was in nursing school to never work without my own coverage and to never depend on my employer to protect my interests -- and everything I've seen since then in 25+ years of nursing practice has just reinforced to me what good advice that was.

While you are technically covered under your employer's , your employer will throw you under the bus in a heartbeat if it suits the employer's needs. I've personally seen that happen many times (not to me, fortunately!) Also, if you depend on your employer's coverage, then it will be your employer's attorneys who are advising you in any kind of court proceedings -- and be assured that they are paid to protect your employer's interests, not yours. Is that who you want to be giving you advice in a tough situation that may affect your career for the rest of your life?

It is extremely unlikely, statistically, that you will ever be sued for malpractice. However, standard individual professional liability policies for nurses include coverage for legal representation if you are called to testify in court as a witness (in a malpractice suit against someone else -- oh, say, a physician at your facility) or if you have to defend your license before the Board of Nursing. Either of those situations is much more likely to happen to you over the course of your career than being sued yourself, and in either of those situations you would definitely want to have an attorney advising you. Your employer will definitely not defend you before the BON -- and the first hour of an attorney's time would cost you more out of pocket than the annual insurance premium for most nurses. And, again, if you're testifying in court, do you want your legal advise coming from the attorneys representing your employer (not you)?

Also, your employer's insurance only covers you (to the extent that it does cover you, which is questionable) for the time you are actually working for your employer. Your own, personal insurance will cover you any time, anywhere, you are working as a nurse -- if you want to volunteer as a nurse in some capacity, if you're involved in responding to an accident or other urgent situation in your community, or even if you just choose (although it's a bad idea!) to give healthcare advice to friends or neighbors and something goes wrong.

Whether or not to buy your own coverage is a v. personal choice. Some of us feel strongly that it's a necessity, and some people feel strongly that it's unnecessary and perhaps even a bad idea. But I am one of those nurses who would never consider working a single day without my own coverage and, again, nothing I've seen over my many years in nursing has caused me to question or re-think that position -- indeed, just the opposite.

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Specializes in Surgical/MedSurg/Oncology/Hospice.

My insurance is also through NSO, just renewed it for $54 (Michigan).

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Specializes in psych, general, emerg, mash.

look before you leap. ask your family practise employer!

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look before you leap. ask your family practise employer!

Employers will always tell you that you don't need any additional insurance -- they want their nurses to be dependent on them and their attorneys if a bad situation comes up, and they don't want you to have your own, independent legal advice. Once again, you cannot assume that they are looking out for your best interests.

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I don't carry any . And I'll never get sued since I don't carry any. Attorneys won't accept a case if the person responsible doesn't have malpractice insurance. Med mal is very costly, and attorney's don't do it out of the goodness of their heart. They do it for the $$$$. No $$$$, no case.

How do I know? Well, I found this out from my attorney after my husband died of a medical incident. We had plenty of time to talk at the courthouse during the settlement hearing, and I learned a lot about med mal. You also don't want to carry more than $1,000,000 as it will make you the "target" or deep pocket. They will come after you as you have more insurance than most people. Even the MD's involved in my late husband's case only had $1,000,000 coverage per occurrence, and out of that included the attorney's fee.

One good thing about insurance though, is that it will buy you some attorney time in case the nursing board investigates an allegation against you, and will help pay for your representation. But usually the amount paid is so small it won't cover even half of the attorney bill.

But if it helps you sleep better at night, its pretty cheap at around $100 a year thru NSO.

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Insurance is a heated debate, and yes, you are in part covered by your employer--however, as a previous poster mentioned, you are only covered for the time that you were employed...so if a suit is filed after you leave, and you are involved, you will no longer be covered. Something to think about--and yes, you will still be implicated, regardless of whether or not you have insurance...money is money, and they don't care where it comes from. (how do I know this? prior to my nursing career--I paid my way through college as a paralegal for a medical malpractice firm, and I saw quite a few nurses regret not having their own ).

Something else to think about is the fact that if a suit were to arise and you are still employed with your employer, you are going to be represented by your employers attorney, who I'd be willing to bet is not going to be concerned with your future, only the future of your employer (who in most cases is a hospital). They will do just about anything to settle the case, regardless of what that might do to your license, they are NOT going to be looking out for your best interest, like your own personal attorney might be.

Thirdly--if you are a nurse that has really done something wrong, like a nurse that I once worked with, she was let go of just before a suit was filed against our hospital--so the hospital no longer had to cover her. She had no insurance...The hospital settled with the family, the nurse was still sued. I work in an employment at will state, so they didn't "need" a reason to dissolve her job.

For $50-$100 per year...I too, would never work a day without my malpractice insurance...I'm pretty sure my premiums are cheaper than what it costs me to renew my license each year...just a few things to think about...

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I also just graduated as LPN in South Carolina and my instructor told us that everyone needs malpractice insurance, but I asked an experienced nurse and she said I would be covered by the company that I work for and that additional insurance will make me a target for lawsuits.

I see this as a cop out for people that are too 'cheap' to pay for the 'luxury' of paying for insurance. MANY people get personal insurance, and even *IF* people are more willing to sue you, you're still covered.

I'm not going to lie - the first thing that will happen is if you're following hospital protocol, THEIR insurance will cover you. If you did something that was *ahem* off the wall and it was OUTSIDE of what you're suppose to do per hospital protocol, the hospital will not cover you. THIS is what insurance such as NSO is for. It's . Meaning if you messed up or did something out of your scope, knowing so or not, they (NSO) will cover you while the hospital/ECF/etc will not.

If you say, "Well then follow the rules!" easier said than done. I've been at the hospital for three years. MANY nursing schools up until recently have said, "Trach care is 'sterile' and should be done with 1/2 H2O2 and 1/2 NaCl" then they changed it recently with "Trach care is 'CLEAN' and should be done first with full strength H2O2 and then rinsed with full strength NaCl." Rules, regulations, "proper" ways to do things, etc. change CONSTANTLY due to "evidence based practice" (even though we've had central venous line caps change from one to another and then back again. Now we're on something different AGAIN ... in a little over 3 years.) Granted these "changes" are 'educated' to staff via continuing learning, etc., HOWEVER if you accidentally revert to the old way, you're NOT following the NEW hospital policy, and thus are liable personally. An example of this is for implanted ports and the way they're accessed. They used to be "Huber needles need to be changed Q3 days" and now 'evidence base' says Qweek change.

What I'm trying to say is, COVER YOUR BUTT AND GET IT! New grad is 50% off, $50 for (hopefully) adequate coverage in case of emergency is something that is better for you personally. Do it. Your peace of mind, unless sued, will be enough to know that it was a good idea. It bothered me for MONTHS until I went on and did it.

Please note, finally, that their site is a piece of junk. Be patient, and don't hit submit more than once with your CC info unless it definitely errors out.

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Specializes in OB, ER.

I am involved in a case currently where the hospital I work for is being sued and I was the primary nurse. I'm not personally named in the suit. Anyway I asked the lawyer about this while I was meeting with him. He said as long as I don't do work outside the hospital I don't need it. I feel very comfortable with the way he is handling this case, advising me, backing me, ect. He said having insurance would just give me another lawyer who would be doing the exact same thing he is. In sense I would have two people representing me and that actually could make things more complicated. I asked what if I personally was being named and he said it would be the same. If I lose the hospital loses. If my name is in the paper and news so is the hospitals. It is in the hospitals best interest for me to win any suit.

He did say it might make a difference in states that don't have caps on suits. He said if the hospital covered me for a million and my insurance covered me for a million that extra million might matter. In my state no one can sue for that much so it's null.

I've never had insurance but I've often debated getting it. He made me comfortable with my decision not to.

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I am involved in a case currently where the hospital I work for is being sued and I was the primary nurse. I'm not personally named in the suit. Anyway I asked the lawyer about this while I was meeting with him. He said as long as I don't do work outside the hospital I don't need it. I feel very comfortable with the way he is handling this case, advising me, backing me, ect. He said having insurance would just give me another lawyer who would be doing the exact same thing he is. In sense I would have two people representing me and that actually could make things more complicated. I asked what if I personally was being named and he said it would be the same. If I lose the hospital loses. If my name is in the paper and news so is the hospitals. It is in the hospitals best interest for me to win any suit.

He did say it might make a difference in states that don't have caps on suits. He said if the hospital covered me for a million and my insurance covered me for a million that extra million might matter. In my state no one can sue for that much so it's null.

I've never had insurance but I've often debated getting it. He made me comfortable with my decision not to.

I'd like to commend your post in that you were able to make your points without revealing identifying facts. However, take care within your profile.

Best wishes.

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I'm not going to lie - the first thing that will happen is if you're following hospital protocol, THEIR insurance will cover you. If you did something that was *ahem* off the wall and it was OUTSIDE of what you're suppose to do per hospital protocol, the hospital will not cover you. THIS is what insurance such as NSO is for. It's malpractice insurance. Meaning if you messed up or did something out of your scope, knowing so or not, they (NSO) will cover you while the hospital/ECF/etc will not. ...

... What I'm trying to say is, COVER YOUR BUTT AND GET IT! New grad is 50% off, $50 for (hopefully) adequate coverage in case of emergency is something that is better for you personally. Do it. Your peace of mind, unless sued, will be enough to know that it was a good idea. It bothered me for MONTHS until I went on and did it.

You're right. This has been the standard "party line" for decades now -- if you follow the hospital protocol, you're covered by the hospital's coverage. The only time you would not be covered is if you did something weird that you weren't supposed to do.

Maybe that was reliable advice once, but I can tell you for a fact that it is bunk nowadays. I worked for several years as a hospital surveyor for my state and CMS, and part of my team's job was to investigate complaints and suspicious deaths in psychiatric settings in hospitals across my state. Our investigations were concerned only with compliance with state and Federal regulations, and had nothing to do with anyone's (or any facility's) civil liability or culpability -- however, it was often easy to tell, from the particulars of the situation, that a particular situation was likely to end up at some point in court as a malpractice suit (in fact, I had more than one hospital administrator tell me that med mal attorneys around the state had started instructing potential clients to contact my agency and make a complaint about whatever incident was in question -- our reports were public record and the attorneys would request a copy of our final reports after we completed our investigations, and use them to decide whether or not to pursue the case. I (all of us on the team) certainly did not like the idea that we, as public employees, were doing med mal attorneys' basic research and legwork for them for free, but there was nothing we could do about it!)

Often, when we arrived at a hospital to investigate a complaint or death, we would be met literally in the hospital lobby by the top hospital adminsitration and legal counsel, who were that eager to explain to us that their internal investigation had revealed that the whole, ugly incident was Nurse X's fault; they were shocked, shocked to find that they had inadvertantly, and through no fault of their own, had such a dangerous and incompetent nurse on their staff, and, to show their remorse and good faith, they had already fired Nurse X (and this was often within just a few days of the actual incident occurring). Upon reviewing the chart(s), it would usually be obvious that Nurse X had really done nothing wrong other than have the bad luck to be assigned to that particular client on that particular shift. But the hospital legal staff had found some minor loophole or picky detail that enabled them to single out a scapegoat, and they were doing what they had to do to protect the hospital (which is not a bad thing; it's what they are paid to do, and most hospital legal departments are v. good at it -- but it doesn't work out too well for Nurse X ...) If I saw this scenario once during the time I was surveying hospitals, I saw it a hundred times (and I felt really bad for the nurses who got scapegoated by their employers). None of the nurses I saw get scapegoated and blamed for ugly incidents and bad outcomes in hospitals had done anything "*ahem* off the wall" or significantly outside of hospital P&P or standard nursing practice -- they had just failed to follow every precise, little detail of one or more hospital P&Ps, and left an opening that the hospital attorneys could take advantage of. How many of us are sure that we have memorized and internalized every detail of every official policy & procedure in our workplace, and we always abide by every specific detail, all day, every day, in every circumstance??????

Now, if you happen to have the bad luck to be Nurse X and you don't already have your own insurance, you are now screwed in a big way. Once the hospital blames you and fires you, you are obviously not covered under their insurance (shoot, they're going to stand up in court and argue that it was all your fault!) And there is no insurance company on the planet that will sell you coverage for an incident that has already happened. At this point, you can buy insurance that will cover you for any incidents that occur in the future, but you're still left swinging slowly in the wind for this incident. You're going to need legal representation and, even if you are ultimately exonerated and "win" in court, it's going to cost you a fortune.

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I am involved in a case currently where the hospital I work for is being sued and I was the primary nurse. I'm not personally named in the suit. Anyway I asked the lawyer about this while I was meeting with him. He said as long as I don't do work outside the hospital I don't need it. I feel very comfortable with the way he is handling this case, advising me, backing me, ect. He said having insurance would just give me another lawyer who would be doing the exact same thing he is. In sense I would have two people representing me and that actually could make things more complicated. I asked what if I personally was being named and he said it would be the same. If I lose the hospital loses. If my name is in the paper and news so is the hospitals. It is in the hospitals best interest for me to win any suit.

He did say it might make a difference in states that don't have caps on suits. He said if the hospital covered me for a million and my insurance covered me for a million that extra million might matter. In my state no one can sue for that much so it's null.

I've never had insurance but I've often debated getting it. He made me comfortable with my decision not to.

I'm sorry to hear about your situation and hope v. much that everything will turn out well for you in this situation, but, again, this is the hospital's attorney, whose job is to represent the hospital's interests. As long as your interests are the same as the hospital's interests, that's fine, but that could change at any moment. I'm sure he's being v. nice and reassuring and helpful now, but, if he decides tomorrow that the hospital's needs are best served by throwing you to the wolves, that's what will happen. Having your own insurance would not "just give (you) another lawyer who would be doing the exact same thing he is" -- it would give you a lawyer who is representing your interests exclusively, not your-interests-to-the-extent-that-they-don't-conflict-with-the-hospital's-interests.

I'm not trying to be critical of you at all, and I do hope this situation will turn out well for you. However, I've seen 'way, 'way too much over the years to take anything a hospital attorney says to me, as a hospital employee, at face value. :) There's no way I, personally, would be willing to take legal advice about my career and my future from my employer's legal counsel.

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The hospital insurance covers the hospital’s interest. Your own professional should protect you should anything happen. Get it if you want it then don’t let your co-workers, boss, especially patients know that you have it.

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