Question about personal liability/ malpractice insurance.....

[CareBayer]

I am going to be starting orientation on Jan. 21st for my first job as an R.N. I want to purchase my own malpractice/ personal Liability Insurance. Where did you purchase yours? I'm looking for a reliable company with a good history. Did you go through the ANA (if you are a member.) Any advice would be much appreciated!

Any other tips for a newbie about to embark on her first job as an R.N.?

Thanks!

[sirI, MSN, APRN, NP]

but I have recently found out that having my own policy acutally ... would be a bigger liability

Why, jalarms??

[PMHNP10]

I can honestly say that I do not remember who I purchased my first malpractice/liability insurnace through. I have not renewed this as the insititution that I work for provides coverage for me. I originally thought that this was not enough, but I have recently found out that having my own policy acutally makes things more complicated and would be a bigger liability. I would suggest contacting HR or your Legal Department to see what is set up for the medical center that you are employed.

You might be correct about complications (in general; I'm not specifically referring to your case), but that depends on the wording of your policy and the hospital policy.

However, the problem with depending on the hospital is that if you don't follow P/P (which is usually the size of a couple War and Peace novels) the hospital might not cover you.

[elkpark]

I can honestly say that I do not remember who I purchased my first malpractice/liability insurnace through. I have not renewed this as the insititution that I work for provides coverage for me. I originally thought that this was not enough, but I have recently found out that having my own policy acutally makes things more complicated and would be a bigger liability. I would suggest contacting HR or your Legal Department to see what is set up for the medical center that you are employed.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I would never trust the legal counsel of my employer (any employer I've ever had) to advise me -- they are paid to look out for the hospital's interests, not mine.

My father is a (now retired) MD, and he advised me back when I was in nursing school (some 25 years ago) to never work without my own, individual insurance coverage -- and everything I've seen since then, in the many years I've been an RN, has just reinforced to me what good advice that was. :)

Up until few years ago, I worked for several years as a hospital surveyor/inspector for my state and CMS, and I've seen first-hand (doing investigations of deaths or other bad outcomes) how often hospitals will blame a particular nurse and immediately fire her/him when the doo-doo hits the fan, in an effort to shift responsibility away from the hospital and onto a particular individual. When that happens, the individual nurse is suddenly no longer covered by the hospital's insurance, AND it's too late to get individual coverage at that point -- there's no insurance company on the planet that will sell you coverage for an incident that's already happened. So, a nurse in that situation who doesn't already have individual coverage is just screwed.