Midlevel Professional Liability Coverage

When referring to our non-physician clients (physician assistants, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, certified registered nurse anesthetists, and physical therapists, to name a few), we don’t necessarily like the term “midlevel.” However, this is the short-hand term used by the professional liability insurance industry to refer to coverage for PAs, NPs, RNs, CRNAs, and PTs. So, today we will be talking about midlevel professional liability coverage.

Midlevel professional liability coverage comes in many forms and can be quoted rather easily.

Most midlevel professional liability policies are claims-made. Often, the standard, admitted, carriers will cover midlevels under a group policy. Midlevels in a group can be covered at no extra charge if they share in the limits with the corporate entity. Separate limits can be obtained for an additional charge.

Coverage costs vary state to state and county to county. Most midlevel professional liability policies start at $1,000 and get as high as $3,000-4,000 with $1 million limits. It should be noted that claims can cause the price of coverage to increase, as well as licensing and criminal background problems, and gaps in coverage.

If the midlevel would like a stand-alone policy, the liability insurance agent will have to go to a surplus lines company. And, occurrence policies can be made available under certain circumstances. However, the cost for this kind of midlevel professional liability coverage will be higher.

It should be noted that one fairly large, growing segment of midlevel professional liability coverage concerns NPs and PAs that are opening their own freestanding clinics and hiring licensed physicians as medical directors. In many cases, we are securing coverage for the clinic, the medical director and the various caregivers (NPs, PAs) in one simple policy. These policies are convenient, because they allow an individual to add and subtract employees in a very easy manner. The cost of these policies has been slowly growing higher because it is such a growing segment of medicine. Cost ranges for a 1st year claims-made clinic policy from $2,500 to $5,000 and it depends on the state, projected number of patient visits, number of caregivers or providers, and estimated revenue of the clinic.