Insurance brokerage firm Minet Kenya has unveiled an enhanced professional indemnity policy targeting medical practitioners.
The new additions to the professional indemnity policy include libel and slander, which means the policy will provide for the costs of defending any action brought against the insured in their professional capacity. It also covers loss of document, dishonest and malicious acts, advisory services, claim advocacy, and asset & premium financing facilitation.
“Every day, doctors are faced with the challenges of diagnosing and treating different diseases, ailments, pains, or other conditions. These doctors are human and at one point in their career are bound to fall short. It is because of the human error element that we have tailored an enhanced professional indemnity policy for doctors,” said Minet Kenya Chief Executive Officer Sammy Muthui.
Categories
The policy is grouped under six categories ranging from general practitioners to specialists like cardiologist, neurologists, haematologists, anaesthetists gynaecologists, obstetricians, among other.
Each category will attract different amounts of annual premium based on the cover benefits, with a premium range of between Ksh19, 000 and Ksh170, 000. The highest cover limit is set at limits of Ksh100 million.
“Some of these claims by patients concerning alleged malpractice could run into millions of Shillings, the cost of which the practitioners might find hard to meet on their own. We believe our revamped professional indemnity policy will give doctors the peace of mind they so much need to execute their duties well,” Mr. Muthui said.
The policy, however, does not cover for liability arising out of or in connection with criminal acts, acts committed under influence of intoxicants, and non-compliance with statutory provisions.
On May 13, 2019, the President assented to the health laws (amendment) act, 2019, which now makes it mandatory for medical practitioners to take a professional indemnity cover and every health institution to insure against professional liability of its staff. Both practitioners and health institutions are expected to comply with this law by November 15, 2019.
