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A The best way for me to answer your question is to tell you about a recent, ongoing situation I’ve been dealing with. It has some interesting implications, and it highlights a couple of different coverages and complications. A practitioner who has insurance coverage with our firm was walking her client from her reception area to the treatment room when the telephone rang. She excused herself and waved the client on — into the treatment area — telling her to make herself comfortable; she would be with her in a moment. The client took this to mean that she should go ahead and get on the treatment table, but while attempting to do this she fell and injured herself. Naturally, at the first opportunity, the practitioner called me (her insurance agent), with a lot of anxious questions about liability. “Would there be a malpractice claim, or a general liability claim? Was there negligence in not escorting the client into the treatment room and assisting her on to the table?” It is a fine line, sometimes, between a malpractice claim and a general liability claim. If the practitioner had been assisting the client onto the table when she fell, it would have clearly been a professional liability claim (because the client was in contact with the practitioner and was injured in the course of the treatment. Not a problem if the practitioner has professional liability coverage.) With the practitioner being absent from the room when the client fell, it could possibly be considered malpractice (because she should not have left the client alone), or alternatively, it might be considered a “trip and fall claim,” putting it in the “general liability,” category. The importance of having both of these coverages with the same insurance company is illustrated very nicely here. If there are two carriers, the fight begins with the client and the practitioner gets caught in the middle. Instead of the claim being settled in a timely manner, it could drag on for many months — perhaps even going to court for a decision on “who is legally liable” and “who must pay” the claim. Whenever I discuss insurance with a business owner, I advise them to deal with just one insurance company and have a single policy to cover all aspects of their operation. Having overlapping policies with two or more companies has drawbacks other than the legal kind I’ve mentioned above: the most important of these being the unwarranted expense. Typically, insurance companies charge a “minimum premium” on every policy they underwrite. And an electrologist who purchases three types of coverage — on three separate policies from three different insurance companies — is probably paying much too high a premium for her insurance protection. For practitioners who need to buy additional, specialized protection for their business, or who simply want to broaden their current coverage, the least expensive course of action would be to have their original insurance company add a rider to their existing policy. The extra coverage would raise the annual premium, of course, but would avoid the “minimum” service charges that result from writing up a new policy with a different carrier. The best advice that can be given to someone who is looking for insurance is as follows: 1. Do your homework, 2. Seek companies and agents that know your business and are best able to protect your needs, 3. Do not hesitate to ask questions (after all, you are the one paying the bucks), and 4. Read your policy, especially the “Exclusion” page (you will learn more there than almost anywhere else). |
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