Medical Office Insurance: Vital Protection for Your Business
If you’re the owner, business manager, or other decision-maker at a medical practice, you know how complex your operations can be. There’s a continual stream of patients, vendors come and go regularly, you need expensive medical equipment and other assets to do your work, etc. Consequently, it’s no surprise when problems happen.
What can be a shock is your business getting sued or suffering property damage and then discovering that you don’t have adequate (or any) medical office insurance to cover the cost. Suddenly, you’re scrambling to cover an unexpected expense from the business’s revenues or savings.
What are some examples of medical practice liabilities and losses? Here are a few:
- A patient sues a nurse, claiming she provided the wrong treatment and the patient was harmed as a result. (Medical malpractice insurance can cover this.)
- A patient’s family member slips on an icy sidewalk that isn’t correctly maintained, falls, suffers a head injury, and sues for the cost of their care and time away from work. (General liability insurance offers protection for this type of incident.)
- A storm’s strong winds topple a tree onto the roof of the building a clinic owns. (The property coverage in a business owners policy can address this.)
- A nurse suffers a deep laceration on her hand while retrieving supplies from a storeroom. She’ll need surgery to repair ligament damage. (Workers’ compensation insurance is designed to cover employee injuries and illnesses.)
These are just a handful of scenarios. The list of possible liabilities and damage is virtually endless. So, what can you do to protect your business from these and other problems? You can ensure your operations are covered by medical practice insurance.
The good news is that insurance is easier to get and more affordable than you might think—especially when you work with biBerk.
What Types of Healthcare Providers Need Medical Business Insurance?
Maybe you’re wondering, “Does our practice need medical business insurance?” The short answer in nearly all cases is, yes, it does.
Do you operate a dental, physical therapy, occupational therapy, acupuncture, or chiropractic office? Is your business a dialysis or surgery center? Do you run a clinic specializing in dermatology, ear/nose/throat issues, or other conditions? Or maybe your practice provides massage therapy or in-home healthcare?
The bottom line is that you need medical practice business insurance if your organization serves patients in just about any manner. The unfortunate reality is that medical practices can be hit with lawsuits at any time, and the financial repercussions of one incident that’s not covered by insurance can be devastating. That’s why it’s crucial to get the policies you need as soon as possible.
Insurance for Medical Offices: 7 Essential Policies
Insurance for medical offices is business insurance that can shield your organization from financial liability and other losses. biBerk offers various policies to address specific risks. That flexibility lets you tailor your insurance portfolio to meet your practice’s unique needs.
For instance, let’s say your organization owns a van to transport patients to and from appointments. In that case, you’ll need a commercial auto insurance policy. In fact, you’re probably required by law to have that coverage. However, you don’t need commercial auto coverage if you don’t own any vehicles.
How do you know what insurance policies your medical practice needs? Great question. Below are seven policies that every medical practice owner or decision-maker should consider.
- General Liability Insurance. Most medical practices consider this a must-have policy. It covers injuries to people who don’t work for you (like the slip-and-fall scenario described above) and damage you or your employees cause to other people's property. It can also pay costs related to libel, slander, and copyright infringement (in your advertisements, for example). Plus, you can add endorsements to enhance your coverage, including cyber, hired and non-owned auto liability, employment-related practices liability, and employee benefits liability.
- Business Owners Policy. A business owners policy (BOP) is an efficient and cost-effective way to shield your company from multiple risks. It combines general liability insurance with protection for your business property. You might hear it called property & liability insurance. This policy has another important benefit: It can pay for lost income due to a covered property loss, like if storm damage causes you to stop seeing patients until repairs can be made. Plus, you can add endorsements like cyber, hired and non-owned auto liability, employment-related practices liability, and employee benefits liability to your BOP.
- Workers' Compensation Insurance. Most states require this insurance for any business with employees. It helps protect your team members (and your company) if they get hurt, sick, or die from an on-the-job incident. It can cover medical costs, legal fees, and lost wages related to the injury. It can also pay a death benefit to a victim’s family.
- Medical Malpractice Insurance. biBerk doesn’t offer medical malpractice insurance for physicians or surgeons. However, we offer medical malpractice insurance to many other healthcare providers, including nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, therapists, chiropractors, and others. It helps protect them from lawsuits claiming they made a mistake in the services they provided to a patient or client. (In other industries, you’ll hear this coverage referred to as professional liability or errors & omissions insurance.)
- Commercial Auto Insurance. This policy protects your practice from the financial consequences of being found liable in an accident. It can cover your legal fees and the medical costs of others if you or your employee is at fault in an accident in your vehicle. It’s also helpful that the policy can pay for damages even if the vehicle is used for personal activities outside its primary business use.
- Umbrella Insurance. Business liability insurance policies—like most insurance policies—have a maximum they’ll pay for a covered incident. If an incident costs more than a policy’s limit, your business has to come up with the difference. Umbrella insurance adds another layer of protection. In approved claims, it can cover costs exceeding the limit of another biBerk liability policy (up to its own limit). Sometimes, it makes more financial sense to carry umbrella insurance than to increase your liability policy limits.
- Cyber Insurance. We offer this coverage as an add-on to a general liability policy or a BOP. It helps cover costs related to system hacks or data security breaches where someone has stolen sensitive information and used it to commit fraud or is likely to.
Our website has detailed information about these coverages. But if you have questions about medical office insurance, our licensed insurance experts are happy to answer them. Don’t hesitate to contact us.
Insurance for Medical Practices: Get Instant Online Quotes
At this point, you’re probably wondering, “What does coverage cost?” We’re glad you asked!
Medical practice insurance policies are priced and sold individually. You can find out what your premiums will be on our website whenever you have a few minutes.
All you have to do is answer a few questions, and we’ll generate an insurance quote specific to your practice. We work hard to make it easy for you to get the quotes and other information you need to make wise insurance decisions for your organization.
Medical practice insurance policy premiums vary based on the type of coverage, the size of your business, your claims history, and other factors. So, you’ll want to have that kind of information accessible when you get a quote.
Generally speaking, you can get a policy with $100,000+ of coverage for as little as a few hundred dollars annually. For most practices, it’s highly affordable coverage—even more so when they work with biBerk. Our direct-sales approach (no brokers or other intermediaries) means you’ll get significant savings over buying from most other insurance companies—up to 20%.
Buy Medical Practice Insurance From a Trusted Provider
You wouldn’t buy a valuable piece of medical equipment from just any provider. The same should be true of your medical practice insurance. There are lots of companies offering it, but not all of them can back up their policies with prompt claims payment and excellent customer service.
biBerk is part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Insurance Group. That’s important to medical practice owners and decision-makers like you because it means we have the financial resources to pay approved claims promptly and in full.
What’s more, as a company, we’ve earned the trust of a wide variety of business owners for several decades. When your organization faces liability or a loss, it’s critical to have a business insurance provider you can rely on.
Getting solid financial protection takes just a few minutes. Buy your medical office insurance policies today and know you’re supported by the insurance industry’s most helpful team!
biBerk: Think big. Insure small.