Nurses malpractice insurance

JRD2002 · Apr 11, 2008

I don't carry any and depending on what facility you work at you might not need any. The hospital I work at pays for all legal fees for its nurses and will stand by them even if it is only the nurse getting sued and not the hospital. Granted my hospital has a low incidence of lawsuits and it continues to decrease. I would contact the administration department of the facility you are going to work at and ask them if they recommend that you get Liability Insurance.

november17, ASN, RN · Apr 11, 2008

I don't carry any and depending on what facility you work at you might not need any. The hospital I work at pays for all legal fees for its nurses and will stand by them even if it is only the nurse getting sued and not the hospital.

My hospital says that too, but I don't really 100% trust them. To be honest Not only that, but what if you get hit with the lawsuit after you stop working there?

tampaflrn6 · Apr 11, 2008

www.NSO.com

One of my nursing instructor who has a PH D in nursing, and works for a malpractice lawyer suggested NSO.

tampaflrn6 · Apr 11, 2008

Forgot to mention.... this website www.nso.com gives you a free quote on their website plus if your a recent graduate nurse (1st year) they automatically give you a discount.

JRD2002 · Apr 11, 2008

My hospital says that too, but I don't really 100% trust them. To be honest Not only that, but what if you get hit with the lawsuit after you stop working there?

I have been with this hospital for 5+ years so I have built up my trust with them. However, that is a good point about the lawsuit being filed after I stop working there.

elkpark · Apr 11, 2008

There have been a bunch of threads on this topic over the years. You can find them with the "search" button it you want to review some pros and cons. Here is one recent thread (that I could find easily because I posted on it):

https://allnurses.com/forums/f224/nursing-insurance-292946.html

I'm one of those nurses who would never consider working a single day without my own coverage. If you really believe that your employer would cover you if/when the doo-doo hits the fan, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you! :)

My father, a (now retired) MD, advised me 'way back when I was in nursing school to never work without my own coverage and never depend on an employer to protect me, and everything I've seen in nursing over the almost 25 years since then has just reinforced to me what good advice that was ...

Megsd, BSN, RN · Apr 13, 2008

Not only that, but what if you get hit with the lawsuit after you stop working there?

It depends what kind of malpractice insurance the hospital has. Some will A) cover YOU during the time you work there, and some will B) cover EVENTS that OCCURRED while you worked there.

So if I work for a hospital under condition A, and something happened a year ago while I worked there, but now I work elsewhere, I'm out of luck.

But if I work for a hospital who has type B insurance, and something happened a year ago while I worked there, I'm covered because the event took place while I was employed there.

My hospital has the second type of malpractice insurance, so I am covered forever for anything that happens during the course of my employment. I still currently have my own insurance (my student policy is good till August) and I haven't decided whether to continue carrying my own.

elkpark · Apr 13, 2008

But if I work for a hospital who has type B insurance, and something happened a year ago while I worked there, I'm covered because the event took place while I was employed there.
My hospital has the second type of malpractice insurance, so I am covered forever for anything that happens during the course of my employment. I still currently have my own insurance (my student policy is good till August) and I haven't decided whether to continue carrying my own.

The reality is that you are probably still out of luck if the hospital has "type B" insurance, because the first thing that happens when something gawd-awful happens in a hospital is that the attorneys and risk-management people start looking around for who they can blame in order to reduce the facility's liability, and if there is any way at all that they can blame it on some poor schmoe nurses, they do it in a heartbeat and leave you to dangle in the wind. I have seen this happen (to others) many times during the years I spent working as a hospital surveyor/inspector.

Please, everyone, look into this issue carefully and don't just assume that your employer will take care of you! They will throw you under a bus at any moment if that will serve the interests of the facility ... I truly find it very hard to believe that anyone, in this day and age, still trusts an employer to look out for her/his best interests -- the world just doesn't work that way anymore.

yellow finch, BSN, RN · Apr 14, 2008

I don't carry any and depending on what facility you work at you might not need any. The hospital I work at pays for all legal fees for its nurses and will stand by them even if it is only the nurse getting sued and not the hospital. Granted my hospital has a low incidence of lawsuits and it continues to decrease. I would contact the administration department of the facility you are going to work at and ask them if they recommend that you get liability insurance.

I've heard this as well... however, if something you've done is even slightly outside the realm of the hospital's policy they won't think twice about telling you they won't back you up. Know your policies and buy personal insurance. Mine is $250/year being a NP student, but it's far less than the millions that some people sue for. I kinda like the house I live in. :)

elkpark · Apr 14, 2008

I would contact the administration department of the facility you are going to work at and ask them if they recommend that you get liability insurance.

Again, I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I would not ask the hospital what they recommend; I can tell you right now that they're going to tell you you don't need your own insurance. They will say this because they don't want you to have your own attorney if you find yourself in a potential-lawsuit situation at work; they don't want you to have any legal advice or representation other than the hospital's counsel to be telling you what to do in that situation, and, remember, those attorneys are being paid to represent the hospital's interests, not yours. If you find yourself in that kind of situation at work, you definitely want to be advised and represented by an attorney who is there to protect your interests, not your employer's.

I don't want to sound like some kind of conspiracy theorist, and I don't mean to suggest that any of this means the hospital administrators or attorneys are evil, or anything; but I've been in nursing and in hospitals for a long time, and I've seen how this stuff works. Hospital attorneys are being paid big bucks to protect the hospital's interests, and they will do whatever they can get away with, legally, in order to do that -- there's nothing wrong with that; that's how the system is supposed to work. But how that works out in real life is that individual nurses get sacrificed.

You never know, from one day to the next, when you're suddenly going to find yourself in a situation like this. If you do, one day, and you don't already have your own insurance, you're screwed. You can't get your own coverage (for that situation) at that point because there is no insurance company on the planet that will sell you coverage for an incident that has already happened, so you're going to have to pay for representation out of your own pocket -- and, for most nurses, just the first hour of consultation with an attorney (and every hour after that!) will cost you more than the annual premium for your own insurance ...

mscsrjhm · Apr 14, 2008

If you have insurance, and are sued, your insurance attorneys will protect the insurance money.

Haven worked for med/mal, negligence attorneys, I personally would never carry my own insurance. However, as previously pointed out, it would be handy in case of any state board issues.

I have also never heard of Plan A or Plan B. If a suit is filed after you left employment, you can still be named as a litigant. Period. You were an employee, and as such, a part of the facility. The facility is being sued: Employees are the facility.

Of course Med/Mal attorneys want all nurses to buy insurance, more $$$.

There is much misunderstanding re malpractice insurance. It isn't like auto or home insurance. I encourage you to research. Might save you some money.