Negligence and indemnity

[alexb123]

If in the UK you are a private practice doctor and you are Negligent how does the indemnity insurance work?

Would you only be covered if you conducted yourself within your protocol's but they caused an adverse affect on a patient despite this. And that this affect then caused a financial lose.

Or would your insurance company still cover you if your action were clearly Negligent and you caused a lose?

If this second instance is true what would deter the doctor from just pleading guilty and letting the insurance company clean up the mess?

 

[alexb123]

Maybe what I am saying here is do you lose some kind of no claims bonus if the negligence it your fault?

 

[Pandaemoni]

Negligence is your failure to use proper care in doing something, and that lack of care leads directly to the accident. If I drive a car while talking on my cell phone, and am distracted, it's not that I intentionally crashed into that other car, nor it is some random act of God...my lack of care led me into the acidental collision.

Same with doctors. He may not have intended to leave his wristwatch inside you during surgery...

With insurance coverages, the terms vary from country to country. I believe that in the U.K., simple negligence is fully insurable. You buy the insurance precisely because we all, from time to time, fail to use due care, and this covers you for them that happens (though there might be a deductible of some sort).

Even if you intentionally injure a patient, some places require that your insurance pay the claim. The insurance company then has a claim against the doctor for contribution, but his malign intent is his and the insurance company's fault, not the patient's. In other jurisdictions intentional acts are not covered (making them the patient's problem).