Malpractice Insurance

jamieann.rn · Jul 23, 2009

Hi Nurse Marla,

I have malpractice insurance through NSO (Nurse Service Organization). The cost is about 90 annually and you can find out more information at nso.com. I carried their insurance through school and now as an RN. Hope it helps.

Toodles.

medicmama921 · Jul 23, 2009

I have my malpractice insurance through NSO as well...you can go to their website & choose which plan you would like, then you can even pay online if you would like to. Most of the nurses I work with have theirs through NSO as well.

elkpark · Jul 23, 2009

NSO and Marsh seem to be the two companies mentioned most often re: professional liability coverage. I have mine through Marsh.

CrufflerJJ, BSN, RN, EMT-P · Jul 24, 2009

If you're a new RN, having graduated from your program within the past 12 months, NSO offers a 50% discount on your rates the first year. Rather than being $90, it would be closer to ~$45.

That is, IF you can get them to respond to your emails, or don't get stuck in voicemail hold purgatory.

I tried getting in touch with them two mornings ago to upgrade my malpractice policy from Student RN to full time employed RN. Twenty minutes on hold, never spoke with a representative. I emailed them a few minutes later (complaining about the poor responsiveness), asking that they give me a call when available...No call, no email 7/21, 7/22, or 7/23. :down: :down: :down:

I just emailed them again, and hope to eventually hear back from them this century. Maybe.

For a company with "Service" in their company name, they certainly seem to be lacking it. :madface: I only hope that in the event of a claim, they manage to form the management task force to investigate the possibility of maybe sort of thinking about almost vaguely responding to me a bit faster than what they've shown this week.

elkpark · Jul 24, 2009

If you're a new RN, having graduated from your program within the past 12 months, NSO offers a 50% discount on your rates the first year. Rather than being $90, it would be closer to ~$45.
That is, IF you can get them to respond to your emails, or don't get stuck in voicemail hold purgatory.
I tried getting in touch with them two mornings ago to upgrade my malpractice policy from Student RN to full time employed RN. Twenty minutes on hold, never spoke with a representative. I emailed them a few minutes later (complaining about the poor responsiveness), asking that they give me a call when available...No call, no email 7/21, 7/22, or 7/23.:down:
I just emailed them again, and hope to eventually hear back from them this century. Maybe.
For a company with "Service" in their company name, they certainly seem to be lacking it. I only hope that in the event of a claim, they manage to form the management task force to investigate the possibility of maybe sort of thinking about almost vaguely responding to me a bit faster than what they've shown this week.

You can always try Marsh ... :) I've found them to be v. responsive the few times I've had to contact them.

JomoNurse · Jul 24, 2009

i'm not sure if i should get malpractice insurance. i've been told countless times that malpractice insurance is as useless as a tennis ball used to cut steak. a few "higher up" nurses have told me that the NSO and other malpractice insurance make money because nurses have been brain-washed/bred to think of their position is white collar. i've been told that patients never sue an RN. they always sue the hospital because of the big bucks. i've ALSO been told that well, what the hell, for $90 dollars a year, you can have an added sense of safety. who knows! what do you all think?

CrufflerJJ, BSN, RN, EMT-P · Jul 25, 2009

i'm not sure if i should get malpractice insurance. i've been told countless times that malpractice insurance is as useless as a tennis ball used to cut steak. a few "higher up" nurses have told me that the NSO and other malpractice insurance make money because nurses have been brain-washed/bred to think of their position is white collar. i've been told that patients never sue an RN. they always sue the hospital because of the big bucks. i've ALSO been told that well, what the hell, for $90 dollars a year, you can have an added sense of safety. who knows! what do you all think?

From everything I've read, malpractice insurance is NOT useless for nurses. Patients (& their lawyer leeches) will sue anybody & everybody remotely involved in the patient's care. While your employer may say that you don't need insurance, and that you're covered by the facility's policy, that may only be if you complied with each & every rule/guideline/procedure that's buried in the 14,000 page employee's handbook. Otherwise, sorry!

At my employer, each newly hired RN is given a bunch of papers, INCLUDING an application form for NSO malpractice insurance. The employer will even pick up half the cost of the premium (whether it's from NSO or another vendor).

$90/year is money well spent, in my opinion.

nrsgnerd · Jul 25, 2009

I'm so glad this conversation is going on. I just graduated and had it pounded into my head that I need to have malpractice ins., however, some senior nurses i work with say that if you have insurance then it is inviting a patient to sue you. some of these nurses have been on the job for 25+ years which speaks volumes to me. On the flip side, there are nurses who have also been nurses for many many years who say that you should carry it in case you do get sued. Then my husband, who was a police officer for years told me that if a patient, or anyone, is going to sue then they will go after the RN first and if they win that case it strengthens their case once they go after the hospital where the bigger bucks are.

I don't want my insurance status to invite a lawsuit but I guess if a patient is going to sue its better to have it then not. i also think about things like: What if we have a house, a boat, and other assets....I don't want to have these things taken from us because I chose NOT to get the insurance. I asked one of the educators at my job what she thought and she said its a personal decision and she doesn't carry it.

I just don't feel like I see the big picture fully,perhaps I should try to find a nurse who has been sued and let that be the deciding factor....any thoughts....your time is appreciated.

elkpark · Jul 25, 2009

Nurses rarely get sued, compared to physicians and hospitals. However, another consideration is that standard nursing professional liability policies ("malpractice insurance") cover you for legal representation if you have to go before the BON to defend your license. That is much more likely to happen at some point in your career than getting sued. Your own insurance also covers you if you wish to do volunteer work of any kind as a nurse, which your employer's insurance won't.

CrufflerJJ mentioned that you may not be covered by your employer's insurance if you didn't follow every exact detail of hospital policy -- in my experience as a hospital surveyor for my state and the Feds for several years, what I saw happening was that hospital attorneys started looking for reasons (failure to comply with one of the pernickety details of one of the kazillion hospital policies, as Cruff mentioned) to blame one or more nurses, who could be left to dangle in the wind, as soon as an incident that was likely to result in a lawsuit happened (in an attempt to reduce the hospital's liability). I couldn't tell you how many times I investigated situations where the hospital was claiming that their internal investigation had determined that it was all Nurse X's fault, when it seemed clear to me from reviewing the chart that the only thing Nurse X had really done wrong was have the bad luck to be assigned to that particular client on that particular day ... But the hospital had found a reason to blame that individual -- and once the hospital has determined that it's Nurse X's fault that a bad outcome happened, Nurse X is no longer covered under the facility's insurance. And, if that happens and Nurse X doesn't already have her/his own insurance, Nurse X is seriously screwed, because there's no insurance company on earth that will sell you coverage for an incident that has already happened ... Nurse X will have to pay for legal representation out of her/his own pocket, and the first hour (and each additional hour!) with an attorney will cost you more than the annual premium for the insurance.

Even if my employer was willing to cover me under the facility's coverage, I would not want to be taking legal advice from the facility's attorneys -- they are there to protect the employer's interests, not yours.

nrsgnerd · Jul 25, 2009

Elkpark,

Thanks so much for your reply. I have decided to get the insurance asap. You mentioned a few things that I had not thought of and its great to get advice from someone who has some experience in knowing what the facilities attorneys look for and who they are there to ultimately protect. I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want to get the insurance even if their only rationale for doing so was to cover the attorney costs. NSO is the only company I have looked at so far and its only going to cost 45.00 for the first year since i am a new grad...you can't beat that! Anyhow, thanks again I appreciate your time.