Nurse liability insurance

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Apr 20, 2013

Simple answer is yes. Two major carriers are NSO and Marsh/Proliability. I know NSO offers a new grad discount, not sure about Marsh.

avaloncar, BSN, RN · Apr 20, 2013

Yeah NSO is good. I have that and they offered a new grad discount.

KRSLPN, LPN · Apr 21, 2013

I've also heard that its NOT a good idea to carry Liability Insurance because if someone is planning some sort of lawsuit, the attorneys will immediately do research to see if anyone involved is carrying insurance and therefore can add them to the list. If you have no liability insurance they MAY leave you out of it because they would know they aren't getting money out of you. Just a thought. . .

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Apr 21, 2013

I've also heard that its NOT a good idea to carry liability insurance because if someone is planning some sort of lawsuit the attorneys will immediately do research to see if anyone involved is carrying insurance and therefore can add them to the list. If you have no liability insurance they MAY leave you out of it because they would know they aren't getting money out of you. Just a thought. . .[/quote']
Not exactly true. But if you are called to court, even if innocent you are solely responsible for all court and legal costs in defending yourself and possibly your license before the board of nursing. If they are adding names to a lawsuit just being on the schedule can be enough for your name to end up in the list of defendants. Your hospital's carrier is there to defend the hospital and if they settle without removing your name you are personally responsible. Even proving innocence has a cost.
Professional liability insurance offers consultation services, payment for legal fees and depositions, license defense before the board of nursing. NSO even offers defense and coverage for accidental HIPPA violations.
How are they going to know you have professional liability insurance to seek you out to add you to a claim? It's not public record.

Stranded55 · Apr 21, 2013

No. As an LVN your facility should cover you.

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Apr 21, 2013

Read this thread, especially the information in post #13 from GrnTea.

https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/i-dont-hear-826226-page2.html

Your employer's policy doesn't cover you as we'll as you might expect.

kladjf · May 30, 2013

As a employee your employer should cover you. The policies run around $100 a year, they are cheap because you will probably never need it. The best feature is the defense coverage - they give you a lawyer if you ever need to appear before a licensing or disciplinary board.

elkpark · May 30, 2013

I worked as a hospital surveyor for my state and CMS for several years, and was involved in investigating multiple "bad outcomes" that we were investigating as licensure issues but were obviously likely to end up as lawsuits at some point. It was extremely common (it has become a routine practice) for the hospital attorneys and risk management people, as soon as something bad happened, to start combing the individual's records looking for one or more nurses the hospital could blame for the incident. As soon as they found one or more nurses they could blame, they would fire Nurse XYZ as a show of good faith ("golly, we didn't realize we had accidentally hired a dangerously incompetent nurse -- we're really, really sorry, and we've fixed that problem by firing her/him, but there was no way we could have foreseen that s/he would do something so dangerous and irresponsible"). Now, as soon as that happens, Nurse XYZ is no longer covered by the hospital's coverage (heck, they're going to go to court and argue that it was the nurse's fault, not theirs -- they're certainly not going to defend the nurse at the same time) and, if Nurse XYZ didn't already have her/his own coverage, s/he is seriously screwed if the case does go to court or the BON, because there is no insurance company on the planet that will sell you coverage for an incident that has already happened.

I investigated many of these situations, and it was obvious to me that Nurse XYZ hadn't done anything significantly wrong other than have the bad luck to have been assigned to that particular client on that particular shift -- however, the hospital had figured out a way to blame Nurse XYZ, and that was their story and they were sticking to it. I couldn't tell you how many times I saw this exact scenario, myself, in real life, during the time I was surveying.

There may have been a day back in the golden days gone by when your healthcare employer would stand by you and defend you if something went wrong -- however, nowadays, I guarantee you that every hospital is looking for some individual employee to blame as soon as it becomes apparent that something could conceivably end up a lawsuit. How well do you know your facility's P&P manual? How confident are you that you follow all your facility's policies and procedures every day, every situation, to the letter? Because if you deviated in any minor way from any of the facility's P&P (or simply didn't document that you followed the policy to the letter), the facility can go to court and say, well, we didn't tell her to do that, we told her to do ABC -- we're not responsible if she decided on her own to do something different. And, legally, the hospital is right.

I've also had hospital administrators tell me that plaintiff's attorneys nowadays file suits listing "Nurse Jane Doe A, Nurse Jane Doe B, Nurse Jane Doe C, Nurse Jane Doe D" as defendants without even knowing yet which specific nurses they are going to name, and knowing that some of them will end up getting dropped from the suit before an actual trial. If you happen to get named as a "Nurse Jane Doe" because you happened to be assigned to that person around the time that the incident in question occurred, you will need legal representation and will incur costs just going through the process of trying to get dropped from the suit.

And, putting aside the issue of getting sued, yourself, which is admittedly unlikely in nursing -- typical nursing liability policies provide coverage (pay for legal representation) if you are called as a witness in a lawsuit against someone else (oh, say, a physician you work with). That is much more likely to happen over the course of your career than getting sued yourself, that is a situation in which you would definitely want legal representation, and I, personally, would not be willing to take advice from the hospital's attorneys in that scenario (which is who would be advising you if you don't have your own attorney). Your own coverage also provides representation if you're called before the BON to defend your license (which would not be covered by an employer), and covers you if you're helping a friend/family member or volunteering as a nurse in your church or community. Your employer's coverage only covers you (if it covers you at all!) while you are at work for that employer. Your own coverage covers you 24/7, in any setting, as long as you're functioning within your legal scope of practice and not breaking any laws.

Hospitals/employers will tell you you don't need your own coverage because you are covered under their insurance, but that's because they want to keep nurses "barefoot and pregnant," legally speaking, and dependent on their attorneys for legal advice if anything goes wrong. My father was a physician and, 'way back when I was in nursing school, he advised me to never practice without my own coverage, and never depend on an employer to protect my interests. I've been in nursing almost 30 years since then, and everything I've seen over the course of my career has just reinforced to me what good advice that was. I would never practice a single day without my own coverage. It's not expensive for most nurses, and it's extremely expensive to find yourself in a situation where you need it but don't have it.

holinurse · Dec 1, 2014

Elk,

Incredibly thorough post! Thanks for taking the time to share your experience!