Finally got malpractice insurance.

Nurses General Nursing

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I have hemmed and hawed for years, and with each passing year in practice, gotten more and more anxious about NOT having . I had always been told "nurses who carry personal insurance are sued first," but then I had also been told that the hospital will only cover you if you followed hospital policy down to the exact letter (and we all know human error is a real thing) and will throw you under the bus the first chance they get.

I have watched coworkers go through awful lawsuits, and have had experiences at work that increasingly leave me praying at the bedside that everything turns out okay and that I don't end up in court. My line of work is just plain scary sometimes (OB). Patients are getting sicker, and pregnancies are getting more and more high risk with more and more co-morbidities that make for sometimes frightening situations at the bedside.

I have been reading through threads on this site for a few weeks trying to decide, and I finally decided that enough is enough, and that my peace of mind is worth $109 a year. I feel like a weight has been lifted. I just had to share.

I like you carried my own insurance for years. Then I let it slide for two years.....lo and behold I get a complaint lodged against my license (search my article on this experience). My insurance would have completely covered my attorney fees to defend my license. So while I have read the carefully crafted responses of everyone here, I am with OP. Peace of mind is priceless. I agree that liability insurance does not cover everything and every possible scenario, the coverage it does provide is worth it to me. Each person has to weigh up their own situation and their stomach for risk.

Thanks. I read your story, and that sucks!

I acknowledge that not having the insurance is a bit of a gamble. Here is how I see it:

I'll save roughly $2500 by not purchasing the policy over the next 20 years or so.

The likelihood I'll be involved in a lawsuit or BON action is small. The likelihood I'll be in one in which my liability policy kicks in is even smaller.

If something happens, it's not that I'm SOL. I can still hire an attorney, and one at my choosing. And, that my or my not take up my $2500.

To me, the odds are greatly in my favor that I'll ever have to spend a significantly amount over what my policy would cost. Obviously, not everyone feels that way.

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Most risk managers in the USA/Canada are middle-aged white females, and pretty much everyone assumes I am in that demographic.

I can relate to that!

If ever you are so inclined to start a thread on another topic, I would love to know your thoughts on charting by nurses.

I often feel like some of my co-workers chart too many details. So much, that when its very busy they can't be consistent.

But then, sometimes the thought creeps in that maybe I'm not charting enough.

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You may be able to get your auto insurance for cheaper if you drop the liability limits and get a personal umbrella policy to provide the higher limits. For example, my $2 million personal umbrella requires only $ 350,000 in liability limits for the underlying auto, motorcycle and homeowner's policies. So any liability over $ 350,000 and up to $ 2 million is covered by the personal umbrella.

This is much cheaper than buying $ 2 million in liability limits on the auto, motorcycle and homeowner's policies. Your insurance agent or broker can run the numbers for you, but it is essential to ensure that the primary policy limits are set at the level required by the umbrella. I have run into people with $ 200,000 in primary liability limits but their umbrella required $ 500,000. In the event of a claim, they would have been personally responsible for paying anything between the $200,000 and $ 500,00 limits; i.e. up to $ 300,000.

Pardon the sidebar....Even less than the $160 I'm paying a month for all those cars - including my husband's (insane) toy? Legit question. (Your statement might not be directed at me.)

We have a million dollar umbrella on the house/property policy.

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I never said I was paying $300 a month for auto liability.

No, what you said was you were paying $300 a month for car insurance. That's insane. Nothing you can do about it, but still insane. (I'm in your corner on that one, BTW - I've never paid that much for car insurance. And you're in SC? I just left there - I thought their rates were supposed to be cheaper. I left everything tagged in NC because our rates ARE cheap, but I had no clue SC was so expensive.)

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Specializes in Healthcare risk management and liability.
Pardon the sidebar....Even less than the $160 I'm paying a month for all those cars - including my husband's (insane) toy? Legit question. (Your statement might not be directed at me.)

We have a million dollar umbrella on the house/property policy.

For your situation, probably not given the relatively low liability limits on your auto policy. But were I in your shoes, I would look into how much it would cost to add the underlying auto coverage to your umbrella policy, noting that you have an umbrella on the homeowner's insurance.

For most of us, a car accident that we cause is our biggest potential personal liability. Say for a moment that your husband loses control of his vehicle and plows into a car full of Boeing engineers in Charleston on their way to lunch. All four engineers are killed outright. Each engineer makes $ 150,000 per year, and between the four of them, they had an estimated 60 years left in the workforce. $ 150,000 times 60 equals a lot of future wage loss. Interestingly enough, plaintiff personal injury attorneys always calculate future wage loss first to figure out if damages are potentially high enough to warrant taking a case, be it medmal, a car crash or a slip and fall. Even more than medical bills or pain and suffering, wage loss is the primary driver of damages. It is easily quantified for the jury.

Adding the cars to your umbrella policy would likely be the cheapest way to raise your liability limits as opposed to having higher liability limits on the auto policy. Your insurance agent or broker can run the numbers for you.

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What insurance do you use?

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Specializes in Healthcare risk management and liability.
What insurance do you use?

The largest writer of personal nursing liability policies is CNA. Most people use the NSO insurance agent to buy it.

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No, what you said was you were paying $300 a month for car insurance. That's insane. Nothing you can do about it, but still insane. (I'm in your corner on that one, BTW - I've never paid that much for car insurance. And you're in SC? I just left there - I thought their rates were supposed to be cheaper. I left everything tagged in NC because our rates ARE cheap, but I had no clue SC was so expensive.)

I would have thought you might go back and look. Here is a cut and paste from my post you are referring to:

"One thing for everyone to think about...a nurse liability policy costs about $100 for $1,000,000 in coverage. The liability portion of my auto policy costs three times that for a fraction of the coverage. Why is that?"

I said for auto liability I'm paying 3x what a nurse policy costs.

If you are paying $100 a month for one, then you are correct, and it's my error.

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I had NSO. I was involved in a possible case so I attempted to contact NSO by phone, email, and their website. NO RESPONSE. I attempted to contact them several times and NO RESPONSE. Got an update that the case was stopped. At my yearly renewal for NSO, I received many email reminders to renew. I kept my money.

I do not recall anyone trying to contact them for a case. I read that many obtained the NSO insurance but did any one have a case where NSO was used, or even made contact with NSO like I tried?

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Specializes in BSN, RN-BC, NREMT, EMT-P, TCRN.

I bought insurance as a nursing student and now as a nurse through NSO. Those who believe the hospital will have your back are delusional.

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Something I noticed no one has mentioned- acts outside of the hospital. I tried to get an answer out of our risk manager at my first job for nearly 18 months. She kept saying she'd get back to me and never did. I brought it up to her at every staff meeting. Result? I got my own insurance.

The example I asked about was- what if I stop at a car accident? Her response was - welp, you can say you were inside scope of practice, and the Good Samaritan Act. I asked her how to go about telling a court that, with a grieving mother standing there, angry at her teenager being dead. Nobody claims the grieving are rational. SURPRISE- in order to tell a court that, you need to hire a lawyer (chaching). The judge may decide that a jury should hear the case, for which you'd be stupid to show up without a lawyer (chaching). You also have to take time off work (chaching).

I'm guessing because she never got back to me, in spite of all the asking- the hospital won't do squat for you. That particular hospital is also #7 on the all time worst hospitals list, an improvement from 3rd place. I sleep soundly knowing I have my own insurance, and a new job:P

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Specializes in Healthcare risk management and liability.

^^^ I can clearly tell you that the hospital liability coverage will not cover you for your actions outside of the hospital. The hospital covers you for your actions as an employee. If you are responding to a car accident, or more commonly, giving clinical advice to a neighbor, you are not covered by the hospital since that is not within the scope of your job as a hospital employee. In those situations, your own may be of value.

I would also say that although it varies by state, the typical Good Samaritan laws are pretty robust. Being a former paramedic, I would rely upon them if I was to stop at an emergency and render aid.

Finally, I apologize on behalf of my colleague for not getting back to you. Many risk managers, especially those with a clinical background with no additional training or experience, don't know very much about liability insurance and do not handle that in their job.

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