The Importance of Shopping Out Malpractice Carriers

Here at CFS Dental Division, we may be a bit different than other insurance people you talk to. That is because a vast majority of them are agents of one insurance company, meaning that if you talk to them they will only say that one carrier is the best for everyone. If there was one singular insurance company that was the best for everyone, because of competition only one of them would exist. The existence of a plethora of malpractice insurance companies is evidence that there is not one singular best insurance company. As a result of this at CFS every year we rerun your malpractice insurance quotes with many insurance companies so we can show you empirically what your best option is in terms of coverage for what you are doing, as well as price! 

Everyone tends to think that it is really just a matter of price as to who you should go with, and 90% of the time that is correct. However every company works differently. Some companies charge you a 50% surcharge on your policy if you work for a DSO and have your own policy, so if you were employed by one, it would really not benefit you to carry your malpractice policy with that company. Another example is some carriers may charge a practice owner a 10% surcharge for “Vicarious Liability” which is coverage for the practice owner for the work that their associate does. In some cases it may make sense to go with a carrier that does not charge, and sometimes it makes sense to do that as well! It really just all depends on what your exact situation is and go from there as to what is the best possible option for you!

Lastly, because every carrier is different, some may be very expensive for doing things like Botox or implants, really anything that one could think is “higher risk”. Some companies may not insure at all if you perform those procedures and some will make your policy more expensive than normal because of it while some carriers may just place you in the normal bracket for doing those and it ends up saving you money! It all comes down to doing what is best for you and that is why we rerun all the quotes every year! It may be a bit annoying to have to refill out that intake form but when it comes to making sure you are paying the correct price and of course having the correct coverage to make sure that if anything were to happen, you are covered the way you should be to ensure that you can keep practicing for many year to come!

Written by: T.J. Stanton,  Regional Director - CFS Dental Division