What is surgery insurance?

What is surgery insurance?

Just as the term suggests surgery insurance is designed to protect any kind of surgery – whether the doctors’, the vets’, or the dentists’ – against loss or damage.

But it also typically provides essential safeguards against the various liabilities facing the professionals working from those surgeries – liabilities which may weigh so heavily that the surgery may suffer fatal financial losses without the protection of surgery insurance.

What does it typically cover?

What does it typically cover?

The following are some of the principal headings which surgery insurance may typically cover:

The property

• the premises occupied by a surgery are likely to represent a considerable investment and, if owned by the practice operating within them, faces risks similar to any other property – loss or damage from fire, flooding, storm damage, impacts, theft, vandalism and the like;

The contents

• in addition to the fittings and furnishings of the average surgery, there is typically significant investment in sophisticated – and expensive – medical equipment, which surgery insurance may protect against theft, loss and damage;

Liabilities

• it is the liabilities faced by any surgery practice, however, which represent perhaps the biggest threats;
• public liability insurance – is required to ensure that you are able to defend claims from any patients, other visitors or members of the public who may suffer an injury or suffer damage to their property during the course of their visit to your surgery or whilst you are making house calls, and if the allegations are well-founded the insurance provides indemnity for the amount of compensation awarded;
• professional liability insurance – the doctors, vets or dentists working from surgeries are highly professional individuals from whom patients properly expect a high standard of professional judgment, so that any lapse in that judgment or mistake that results in suffering or financial loss to a patient may prompt a claim of professional negligence;
• professional liability insurance is frequently a condition of the practitioner’s membership of his or her relevant professional body;
• employer’s liability insurance – since your surgery is also almost certain to employ others to help in its running, the law requires that you hold a minimum of £5 million employer’s liability insurance to meet the claims of employees who may be injured or who might contract a medical condition through their work at the surgery.

Who is surgery insurance suitable for?

Who is surgery insurance suitable for?

Surgery insurance is suitable for the owners or participating partners of any kind of surgery, in public or private practice – whether the professionals working from the premises are doctors, vets, dentists or other practising professionals.

Summary

Summary

Arming yourself and your surgery against the certain challenges of the future is almost certain to require your attention to the need for effective surgery insurance.