Florida Liability Insurance
If you speak with any physician that has practiced in Florida for more than 10 years, you are sure to get at least one or two horror stories about fly-by-night Florida liability insurance companies that came into the state, enticed doctors with low rates, and then disappeared as quickly as they arrived. Up until about 5 or 6 years ago, the state was really a difficult place to shop for coverage and find secure Florida liability insurance. The good news is that things have changed for Florida liability insurance.
Over the last several years, the Florida State Department of Insurance has stepped up and is now effectively regulating the market. Where in the past, many medical malpractice insurance companies have stayed away from Florida, now they are coming back and this has created an environment for great competition and great choices for doctors.
Unless you work for a hospital or a large practice, more than likely in Florida you will carry limits of $250,000 per claim and $750,000 aggregate. Many doctors ask us if these limits are sufficient and if they should carry higher limits of $1 million per claim and $3 million aggregate. We usually council doctors to carry the limits that are typical of the state requirement, unless they feel they have some added liability or risk, or an outside entity such as a hospital or surgery center requires them to have higher limits. Additionally, in Florida we remind doctors Florida is a “homesteading” state, and that most doctors shelter their wealth from claims by using their homes or retirement funds.
Except for Miami and the area just around Miami in Dade county, most of the Florida liability rates in the state are relatively low. We recommend in Miami/Dade county that physicians shop for coverage every year because the rates can fluctuate wildly from year to year and physicians can save significant amounts of money if shopping at the right time.
Physicians who own medi-spas also have a vast number of options for insurance coverage. Since medi-spa services vary so widely, there’s no set rates available. However, our office recently found coverage for a Florida medi-spa, run by a group of Florida physicians, that was roughly half of what they were paying before. The physicians were so impressed with the cost savings that they asked us to review their Florida liability insurance and we were able to find them additional cost savings.
Because the state has done such a good job at regulating the Florida liability insurance market, we highly recommend that a physician not “go bare” and, instead, purchases medical malpractice insurance. The availability of a wide variety of insurance options assures physicians in Florida that they should be able to find Florida liability insurance coverage at a reasonable rate.
If you would like to receive multiple quotes, please contact an agent at MyMedicalMalpracticeInsurance.com and we will send you a spreadsheet with all of our available rates.
