What’s the difference between claims-made and occurrence policies?
Claims-made policies provide liability coverage which is used in response to incidents or claims arising on or after the policy retroactive date and which are reported during the term of the policy.The retroactive date determines how long before the inception of the policy that physicians are covered for negligent acts, error or omissions that are reported during the coverage provided by the policy. A retroactive date can match the policy inception date so that no prior acts are covered. Most medical liability companies will offer a free tail at retirement, subject to certain conditions.When transferring coverage from one insurance company to another on a claims-made policy, it is important to have the new company “pick up” the retroactive date on the previous policy, so there is no protection gap.If this is not possible, we recommend that our clients look into purchasing a “tail” to protect themselves from future claims which arise from the time the policy was active.Occurrence polici
